



































































































THE WINDING STAIR 

A. E. W. MASON 



Books by A. E. W. MASON 


THE FOUR FEATHERS 
THE SUMMONS 
THE BROKEN ROAD 
MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY 
CLEMENTINA 
THE TURNSTILE 
THE TRUANTS 
AT THE VILLA ROSE 
RUNNING WATER 

THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER 

THE PHILANDERERS 

LAWRENCE CLAVERING 

THE WATCHERS 

A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE 

ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY AND OTHER TALES 

FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD 




THE WINDING STAIR 


BY 


.J' 

aSe. w. mason 


“All rising to great flace is 
by a Winding Stair .”— Bacon. 



new 



YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



0 



COPYRIGHT, 1923, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 




THE WINDING STAIR. II 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


AUG 30 ’?3 

©C1A711717 




CONTENTS 


ro 

r 4 






CHAPTER 

I Flags and Pedigree 
II The Man with the Medals . 

III At King’s Corner 

IV Betwixt and Between . 

V The Villa Iris 

VI The Order .... 
VII The Pilgrimage . 

VIII Henriette Explains 
IX Marguerite Lambert 
X Colonel Vanderfelt’s Letter 
XI A Dilemma .... 
XII The Little Door in the Angle 

XIII The Companions of the Night 

XIV The Tunic .... 1 
XV On the Roof Top 

XVI Marguerite’s Way Out 
XVII The Outcasts 
XVIII Captain Laguessiere’s Report 
XIX In the Sacred City 
XX The Coup de Grace 
XXI Two Outcasts 
XXII The Splendid Throw . 

XXIII The Necessary Man . 


PAGE 

9 

23 

3 i 

44 

49 

62 

74 

85 

98 

114 

119 

136 

143 

160 

173 

185 

196 

212 

227 

239 

248 

261 

272 














THE WINDING STAIR 


\ 



THE WINDING STAIR 

CHAPTER I 

Flags and Pedigree 

“T HAVE finished work for the week. I’ll see no 
one else were he as terse as Tacitus,” cried Mr. 
Ferguson, the lawyer. 

It was six o’clock on a Friday afternoon 
and a pleasant rustle of the plane trees in the square 
came through the open window of the office. Mr. Fer¬ 
guson thought of his cool garden at Goring, with the 
river running past, and of the fine long day he would 
have upon the links to-morrow. Gregory, the head- 
clerk, however, held his ground. 

“Perhaps if you would look at this card, Mr. Fer¬ 
guson.” 

Mr. Ferguson looked at the size of it. 

“By the Lord, no! It’s a woman. She’ll be as 
prolix as the devil.” 

“It’s not a woman,” the stubborn Gregory insisted. 

“Then it’s a foreigner, and that’s worse.” 

“It’s not even a real foreigner,” said Gregory. He 
had been a servant of the firm for thirty years, and 
knew the ins and outs of its affairs as thoroughly as 
the principals. 

“You are very annoying, Gregory,” said Mr. Fergu¬ 
son, with a sigh. He took the card regretfully, but 

9 


10 The Winding Stair 

when he had read the name printed upon it, he dropped 
it upon his table as if it had stung his hand. 

“Paul Ravenel!” he said in a low voice, with a glance 
towards the door. “The son.” 

“Yes.” 

“Is he like the father?” 

“Not in the least.” 

Mr. Ferguson was distressed. It was nine years 
since he had finished with that affair, settled it up, 
locked it away and turned his back on it for good—as 
he thought. And here was the son knocking on his 
door. 

“I must see him, I suppose. I can do no less,” he 
said, but as Gregory turned towards the door he stopped 
him. “Why should Paul Ravenel come to see me?” 
he asked himself. “And how much does he know? 
Wait a moment, Gregory. I have got to go warily 
here.” 

He sat down at his desk. Mr. Ferguson was a man 
of middle age, with a round, genial face and a thick 
covering of silver-white hair. He looked like a pros¬ 
perous country gentleman, which he was, and he had 
the reputation of the astutest criminal lawyer of his 
day. He was that, too. His kindly manner concealed 
him, yet he was not false. For he was at once the best 
of friends, with his vast experience of the law as a sort 
of zareeba for their refuge, and the most patient and re¬ 
lentless of antagonists; and he had a special kindliness 
which showed itself conspicuously in his accounts, for 
all connected with the arts. It was an old friendship 
which was troubling him now as he sat at his desk. 
Paul Ravenel, according to his knowledge, would take 
this or that line in the interview, Mr. Ferguson must 
be clear as to how in each case he should answer. 


11 


Flags and Pedigree 

Problems were his daily food—at least until six o’clock 
on Friday evening. Yet this problem he met with dis¬ 
comfort. 

“You can show him in now,” he said to Gregory, 
and a few seconds later the visitor stood within the 
room, a tall slim youth, brown of face and with hair 
so golden that the sun seemed to have taken from it 
the colour which it had tanned upon his cheeks. 

“You wish to see me, Mr. Ravenel?” he asked, and 
a smile suddenly broke upon the boy’s face and made 
him winning. Mr. Ferguson made a note in his mind 
of the smile, for he had not as yet its explanation. 

“Yes,” answered Paul. “I should have been more 
correct in approaching so prominent a firm, had I 
written asking for an appointment. But I only landed 
in England this morning, and I couldn’t really wait.” 

His formal little prepared apology broke down in a 
laugh and an eager rush of words. 

“That’s all right,” said Mr. Ferguson pleasantly. 
“Take a chair and tell me what I can do for you.” 

“You knew my father,” said Paul, when he had laid 
down his hat and stick and taken his seat. Mr. Fergu¬ 
son allowed himself a sharp glance at the lad. For his 
tone was without any embarrassment at all, any shame 
or embarrassment. He was at his ease. 

“I knew Mr. Ravenel—yes,” Mr. Ferguson answered 
cautiously. 

“He died a fortnight ago.” 

“I was sorry to notice that you were wearing black.” 

“He died in a house which he had built upon an 
island off the coast of Spain at Aguilas. I lived with 
him there, during the last eight months, after I left my 
school at Tours,” Paul continued. 

“Yes?” said Mr. Ferguson. 


12 


The Winding Stair 

“My father and I were always—how shall I put it ?— 
in a relationship which precluded any confidences and 
even any cordiality. It wasn’t that we ever quarrelled. 
We hardly were well enough acquainted for that. But 
we were uncomfortable in each other’s company and 
the end of a meal at which we had sat together was to 
both of us an invariable relief. He had what I think 
is a special quality of soldiers—he was in the Army, 
of course, wasn’t he?” 

Paul broke off to ask his question in the most casual 
manner. But Mr. Ferguson did not answer it. It was 
a neat little trap prepared with more skill than the 
lawyer had expected. For up till the question was un¬ 
concernedly dropped in, Paul had been framing his 
sentences with a sort of pedantry natural to a man 
who from the nature of his life must get his English 
words from books rather than from conversation. 

“You say Monsieur Ravenel had some special qual¬ 
ity of soldiers,” Mr. Ferguson observed. 

“Yes,” Paul explained. “I approached a subject, or 
I used a phrase, and suddenly it seemed as if an iron 
door was banged in my face, and he was now behind 
the door, and not the loudest knocking in the world 
would ever get it open. So I have come to you.” 

“For information your father did not see fit to give 
you?” said Mr. Ferguson. 

“Yes.” 

“But Monsieur Ravenel had no doubt a lawyer in 
Paris and an agent in Casablanca, where he lived for 
many years, both of whom will be familiar with his 
affairs. Why come to me?” 

“Because it is not about his affairs that I am seeking 
information,” said Paul, and he took a letter from his 
pocket-case and handed it to Mr. Ferguson. “This 


13 


Flags and Pedigree 

was written by your firm, Mr. Ferguson. It is one of 
the two clues to my father’s history which he left be¬ 
hind him. It slipped out of a book upon his shelf.” 

“Certainly the letter was written by our firm to your 
father, Mr. Ravenel. But it was the last letter we 
wrote to him. It closed our connection with him. We 
never heard from him again; and the letter is as you 
have seen, nine years old.” 

“Exactly,” said Paul. “Just about that time my father 
and I were in London together for a couple of months, 
and when I found that letter it seemed to me to ex¬ 
plain why. My father was in London to arrange for 
the transfer of his property to France, for the final 
annihilation of all his interests and associations with 
this country.” 

It was an assertion rather than a question, but Mr. 
Ferguson answered it. 

“Yes. I suppose that you may put it that way.” 

“Before that time, then, you were his advisers.” 

“Yes.” 

“That’s why I came to you, Mr. Ferguson,” cried 
the youth eagerly. “I want to know what happened to 
my father in the days when you were his advisers. I 
want to know why he renounced his own country, 
why he buried himself first in a little distant town on 
the sea coast of Morocco like Casablanca, why he took 
refuge afterwards in a still closer seclusion at A'guilas 
in Spain. You know! You must know!” 

Mr. Ferguson rose from his desk and walked to the 
fireplace which was between his desk and the chair on 
which Paul was seated. He was puzzled by the man¬ 
ner of the appeal. There was more eagerness than 
anxiety in it. There was certainly no fear. There 
was even confidence. Mr. Ferguson wondered whether 


14 


The Winding Stair 

young Ravenel had some explanation of his own, an 
explanation which quite satisfied him and which he 
only needed to have confirmed. Paul’s voice broke in 
upon his wondering. 

“Of course I can always find out. It’s only a ques¬ 
tion of knowing the ropes. I have no doubt a good 
enquiry agent could get me the truth in a very few days 
if I went to one.” 

Mr. Ferguson lifted himself on his toes and looked 
up to the ceiling. 

“I don’t think I should do that,” he answered. 

“Whether I do or not depends upon you, Mr. Fer¬ 
guson,” said Paul, very quietly. “It’s not curiosity 
that’s driving me, but I have my life in front of me, 
and a plan for it.” 

He rose and stood at the open window for a moment 
or two, and then turned abruptly back and stood be¬ 
fore Mr. Ferguson. 

“You see, I was nine years old when I was with 
my father in London, old enough to notice, and old 
enough to remember. And one or two very curious 
things happened. We were in lodgings in a little quiet 
street, and except on occasions when, I suppose, he 
had appointments with you, my father never went out 
by daylight.” 

“Here it comes,” thought Mr. Ferguson, but his 
face was quite without expression, and the youth re¬ 
sumed : 

“But as soon as darkness fell we took long tramps 
through the city, where the streets were empty of 
everything but the lamp-posts, and the only sounds 
were the hollow sounds of our own footsteps upon the 
pavement.” 

“Yes,” Mr. Ferguson interrupted. “One couldn’t 


Flags and Pedigree 15 

choose a better place for exercise than the city of 
London after dark.” 

Paul laughed pleasantly and Mr. Ferguson reflected, 
“I have never been called a liar in a prettier fash¬ 
ion.” 

“On one of these nightly rambles,” Paul resumed, 
“we turned into a street closed at one end by a stately 
building of pinnacles and a sloping roof, and windows 
of richly stained glass. This building was a blaze of 
light, and in the courtyard in front of it motor-cars 
and carriages were taking up ladies in bright evening 
frocks and coats and men with orders upon their 
breasts.” 

Mr. Ferguson nodded his head. 

“A dinner at the Guildhall, yes.” 

“It was curious to come suddenly out of darkness 
and silence and emptiness,” Paul Ravenel resumed, 
“into this gay scene of colour and enjoyment and light. 
You can imagine how it impressed a child. This was 
what I wanted. I hated long, empty, echoing streets 
with chains of lamps stretching ahead. Here I heard 
to me a sound unknown and divine—I heard women 
laughing. ‘Oh, father, do let us stay for a moment 
and look!’ I cried, but my father gripped me by the 
arm, and strode across the road so swiftly that I had 
to run to keep up with him. There was the mouth of 
another street nearly opposite, and it was that street 
which my father wanted to reach.” 

“Yes?” said Mr. Ferguson. 

“But a man was walking with a limp from the build¬ 
ing along the pavement on the far side of our road. 
It was a hot night, and he carried his overcoat upon 
his arm, and I saw that a conspicuous row of minia¬ 
ture medals with their coloured ribbons stretched 


16 


The Winding Stair 

across his left breast. We reached the kerb when he 
was only a few yards from us. I felt my father’s 
hand tremble suddenly upon my arm. I thought that 
he was on the point of turning away in flight. But 
since that would have been more noticeable, he just 
dropped his head so that the brim of his hat shadowed 
his face and strode swiftly past the man with the 
medals. That man only gave us a careless glance, and 
I heard my father draw a sigh of relief. But a few 
paces on the man with the medals stopped and looked 
back. Then he called out: 'Ned! Ned!’ in a startled 
voice, and began to retrace, as fast as his limp would 
allow him, his steps towards us. 

“My father whispered to me: 'Take no notice, boy! 
Walk straight on/ and in a moment dived into the 
silence of the street opposite. I turned my head after 
we had travelled a few yards in our new direction and 
I saw the man with the medals at the angle of the 
street peering after us as if he were undecided 
whether to follow us or not. There the incident ended, 
but it was—well—significant, wasn’t it?” 

Mr. Ferguson was distinctly uncomfortable. A pair 
of very steady and watchful grey eyes were fixed upon 
his. He was being cross-examined and not clumsily, 
and by a boy; and all of this he fretfully resented. To 
do the cross-examining was his function in life, not 
the other fellow’s. Besides, how was he to answer 
that word significant? Such a good word! For it 
opened no glimpses of the questioner’s point of view 
and was a trap for the questioned. 

“Was it significant?” he asked. 

Paul suddenly smiled, and Mr. Ferguson was more 
perplexed than ever. The boy was not obtuse—that 
was clear. It was no less clear, then, that he attached 


Flags and Pedigree 17 

some quite special significance of his own invention to 
the incident he had related. Monsieur Ravenel was in 
hiding—that’s what the incident signified. How had 
Paul missed it? What strange amulet was he wearing 
that saved him from the desolating truth? 

“Did you ever read ‘Balaustion’s Adventure’?” Paul 
inquired, and Mr. Ferguson jumped. 

“I wish you wouldn’t spring from one subject to 
another like that,” he answered, testily. 

“I am on the same subject,” said Paul. 

“Well, then, I did. I used it as a crib for the Alces- 
tis when I was at school.” 

“A pretty good crib, too.” 

“Very.” 

“But the translation of the A'lcestis isn’t the whole 
of the poem, is it? The Alcestis makes things pretty 
black for Admetus, doesn’t it? You’d call him a bit 
of a rotter, wouldn’t you? That is, if you take the 
first surface meaning of the play. But Balaustion 
found another meaning underneath which transfigures 
Admetus, turns the black to white. Well, humbly, but 
just as confidently, I look underneath the first obvious 
meaning of what I told you. That’s disgrace, isn’t it ? 
Let’s be frank about it! A man in disgrace shunning 
his friends! There’s the surface reading. And there’s 
no other—except mine.” 

“Let me hear it,” said Mr. Ferguson quickly. He 
returned to the chair at his table. Here might be, after 
all, a pleasant way out of this disconcerting interview. 
“Will you smoke?” he asked, and he held out a tin of 
cigarettes to his visitor. 

“Now fire away!” he said. Mr. Ferguson was in a 
much more cheerful mood. 

Discomfort, however, had not vanished from the 


18 


The Winding Stair 

room. It had passed from Mr. Ferguson. But it had 
entered into Paul. He stammered and was shy. Fi¬ 
nally he blurted out: 

“I find the explanation of everything in my father’s 
passionate love for my mother.” 

Mr. Ferguson’s eyes turned slowly from the plane 
trees to Paul’s face. 

“Will you go on, please?” 

“My mother was French.” 

“Yes. Virginia Ravenel. She sang for one season 
at Covent Garden. She was the most beautiful girl I 
ever saw in my life.” He laughed, tenderly caressing 
his recollections. “There was a time when I fancied 
myself your father’s rival. You have a look of her, 
Mr. Ravenel. She was fair like you,” and he was still 
musing with pleasure and just a touch of regret upon 
the pangs and ardours of that long-vanished season 
of summer and magic, when Paul Ravenel thoroughly 
startled him. 

“I think that my mother died in giving me birth,” 
he said. “That’s how I explain to myself my father’s 
distance and uneasiness with me. I was the enemy, 
and worse than that, the enemy who had won. No 
wonder he couldn’t endure me, if with her death his 
whole world went dark. And everything else follows, 
doesn’t it? His friends came to mean—not nothing 
at all, but an actual annoyance, an encroachment on 
his grief. He shut himself up far away in a little town 
where no one knew him, and brooded over his loss. 
And men who do that become extravagant, don’t they, 
and lose their perspective, and do far-fetched, unrea¬ 
sonable things. Thus, my mother was French. So in 
a sort of distorted tribute to her memory, he changed 
his own nationality and tooks hers, and with it her 


Flags and Pedigree 19 

name, and cut himself completely off from all his old 
world—a sort of monk of Love!” 

Mr. Ferguson listened to the boy’s speech, which 
was delivered with a good deal of hesitation, without 
changing a muscle of his face. So this was why Paul 
could elate with a laugh the flight from the man with 
the medals and the lighted courtyard of the Guildhall. 
This was what he believed! Well, it was the explana¬ 
tion which a boy ignorant of life, nursed by dreams 
and poetry and loneliness and eager to believe the world 
a place of sunlight and high thoughts, might easily 
have conceived. 

“Isn’t that the explanation, Mr. Ferguson?” Paul 
asked; and Mr. Ferguson replied without the twitch 
of a muscle: 

“Absolutely! I did not think that you could have 
understood your father’s reticence so thoroughly.” 

If one must do a thing, to do it with an air is 
the best way to carry conviction, thought Mr. Fergu¬ 
son, and he rose from his chair with a deep relief. 
The interview was over, his visitor obviously satisfied, 
he could shake him by the hand and after all catch his 
train to Goring. 

Mr. Ferguson’s relief, however, was premature. 
For the younger man cried: 

“Good! For now the way is clear for me, and I can 
ask you for your professional help.” 

“Oh!” said the lawyer doubtfully. “I didn’t under¬ 
stand that you came as a client. I am not very sure 
that we can undertake much more than we have upon 
our hands.” 

“It’s not so much more, Mr. Ferguson.” 

“I must be the judge of that. Let me hear what it 
is that you wish.” 


20 


The Winding Stair 

“I wish to resume my own real nationality,” said 
Paul. “I am of my race. I want the name of it, too.” 

Paul was of his race. It was not merely the long- 
legged build of him, nor the cut of his clothes, nor the 
make of his shoes, but a whole combination of small, 
indefinable qualities and movements and repressions 
which proved it. 

“I should never have mistaken him for anything 
else,” thought Mr. Ferguson. There was that little 
speech, for instance, about his father’s love for his 
mother, halting, shy, stammered, as if he were more 
than half ashamed of admitting the emotions to an¬ 
other man, and tongue-tied in consequence. The 
words would have run glibly enough had a French lad 
spoken them. 

“And with my race, I mean of course also to resume 
my father’s name,” Paul continued. 

There had suddenly grown up an antagonism be¬ 
tween these two people; and both were aware of it. 
Paul’s questions became a little implacable; Mr. Fer¬ 
guson’s silence a little obstinate. “You know it, of 
course, Mr. Ferguson,” Paul insisted. 

“Of course,” replied Mr. Ferguson. 

“Will you tell it to me, please?” 

“I will not.” 

“Why not?” 

“Your father never told you it. Your father was 
my client for years, my friend for many more. I re¬ 
spect his wishes.” 

Paul Ravenel bowed and accepted the refusal. 

“I have only one more question to ask of you, Mr. 
Ferguson.” 

“I will answer it if I can.” 

“Thank you! Who is John Edward Revel?” 


21 


Flags and Pedigree 

“I really don’t know.” 

Paul bowed again. He took up his hat and his stick. 
He was not smiling any more, and in his eyes there 
was a look of apprehension. He did not hold out his 
hand to Mr. Ferguson. 

“It will have to be the enquiry agent after all, then,” 
he said. “Good evening.” 

The lawyer allowed him to reach the door, and then 
spoke in an altered voice. There was a warm kindli¬ 
ness in it now, and to the youth’s anxious and atten¬ 
tive ears a very audible note of commiseration. 

“Mr. Ravenel, I want you to give me four days be¬ 
fore you set on foot any inquiry. There are others 
concerned in the matter. I assure you that you will be 
wise.” 

Paul shook his head. “Four days. What shall I do 
with myself during those four days?” 

“You have been very lonely for years,” said the 
lawyer gently. “Four days more, what do they 
mean?” 

“During those years,” answered Paul, “I have had 
the future for my companion. Have I got that com¬ 
panion now?” and Mr. Ferguson was silent. 

“I came to your office full of expectation. I have 
not even now revealed to you the plan I had formed,” 
Paul resumed. “I leave it a prey to a very deep anx¬ 
iety. That name I mentioned to you, I found written 
on the flyleaf of an old manual on infantry drill in 
my father’s bedroom. It was the only old book on his 
shelf from which the fly-leaf had not been torn out. I 
am only now beginning to grasp what that may mean.” 
But since Mr. Ferguson had ceased to dispute or pre¬ 
tend, and showed openly a face where distress was 
joined with good will, the young man cried: 


22 


The Winding Stair 

“Still, I’ll give you the four days, Mr. Ferguson.” 

He wrote down the name of his hotel upon a slip of 
paper and left it on the desk, and shook the lawyer by 
the hand. 

Left alone, Mr. Ferguson sat for a little while in a 
muse, living again the sweet and bitter scenes of van¬ 
ished years. To what unhappy ends of death and dis¬ 
grace had those anxieties and endeavours led? To 
what futilities the buoyant aspiration? He rang the 
bell upon his desk, and when his head clerk appeared 
he said: 

“I want a message telephoned to Goring that I shall 
not get home until eight. Then every one can go. I 
have a letter to write which will take a little time.” 

“Very well, sir,” said Gregory, and Mr. Ferguson 
suddenly slapped his hand down on the table in exas¬ 
peration. 

“Isn’t it a curious thing, Gregory?” he exclaimed. 
“Here’s a man takes a world of pains to destroy all 
traces and records and then keeps by him one book 
with a name written upon the flyleaf which brings in a 
second all his trouble to nothing! But it’s always the 
way. Something’s forgotten which you’d think no 
man in his senses would overlook! Half the miseries 
in the world I do believe come from such omissions.” 

“And more than half our business,” Gregory replied 
drily. 

Mr. Ferguson broke into a laugh. 

“Why, that’s true, Gregory,” he cried. “And now 
leave me to my letter!” 

He worded his letter with infinite care, for it was as 
delicate a piece of work as he had ever been called 
upon to do, and it took him a full hour. He posted it 
himself in a pillar-box on his way to Paddington. 


CHAPTER II 

The Man with the Medals 


T HOUGH Paul left Mr. Ferguson’s office with 
a calm enough face, his mind was bewildered 
and fear clutched at his heart. Things were 
happening to him which he had never imagined at all. 
He had been confident with all the perfect confidence 
of eighteen years and his confidence in a second was 
gone. He was in real distress, which made him ache 
like some physical hurt and tortured him at night so 
that he could not sleep till long after daybreak. He 
could not adjust himself to the new conditions of his 
life. He looked with surprise upon other people, in 
the streets or in the public rooms of his hotel, who were 
unaware of the troubles which had hold of him. 

He had planned his visit to London full with many 
a pilgrimage. The London of Dickens and De Quincey 
—its inns, its gardens and churches! That old man¬ 
sion at the northwest corner of Greek Street, where 
Mr. Brunell had given a lodging and a bundle of law 
papers for a pillow, to his youthful client—all were 
to be visited with a thrill of excitement and a hope that 
they would not fall short of the images he had made 
of them in his thoughts. But the glamour had faded 
from all these designs. He paced the streets, and in¬ 
deed all day, but it was to get through the long dismal 
hours and he walked like one in a maze. 

He knew no one and throughout the four days no 
one spoke to him at all. He moved through the 

crowded thoroughfares unnoticed as a wraith; he sat 

23 


24 The Winding Stair 

apart in restaurants; and as his father had done, he 
tramped by night the hollow-sounding streets of the 
city where the lamp posts kept their sentry guard. On 
the fifth day, however, the expected letter did come by 
the first post from Mr. Ferguson. 

“If you will travel to Pulburo’ in Sussex by the 3.55 
p. m. train from Victoria on the day you receive this, 
Colonel Vanderfelt will send a car to meet you at the 
station and will put you up for the night. Will you 
please send a telegram to him”; and the Colonel’s ad¬ 
dress followed. 

Paul sent off his telegram at once and followed it in 
the afternoon. Outside Pulboro’ station a small grey 
car was waiting and a girl of his own age, with brown 
eyes and a fresh pretty face and a small bright blue 
hat sitting tightly on her curls, was at the wheel. 

“I am Phyllis Vanderfelt,” she explained. “My 
father asked me to drive in and fetch you. He has 
had to be away to-day and won’t get home much be¬ 
fore dinner time, I’m afraid.” 

She turned the car and drove westwards under the 
railway arch talking rather quickly as people who are 
uneasy and dread an awkward silence will do. They 
passed through a little town of narrow winding streets 
and high walls clustered under a great church with 
a leaping spire, like a piece of old France, and swung 
out onto a high wide road which dipped and rose, with 
the great ridge of the South Downs sweeping from 
Chanctonbury Ring to Hampshire on their left, forests 
and bush-strewn slopes of emerald and cliffs of chalk 
silver white in the sun, and from end to end of the 
high rolling barrier the swift shadows of the clouds 
flitting like great birds. 

They had ceased to talk now and there was no awk- 


The Man with the Medals 25 

wardness in the silence. Paul was leaning forward 
gazing about him with a queer look of eagerness upon 
his face. 

“To come home to country like this!” he said in a 
low voice. “You can’t think what it means after 
months of brown earth and hot skies.” 

Upon their right a low wall bordered the road, and 
on the other side of the wall fallow-deer grazed in a 
Park. Beyond, a line of tall oaks freshly green was 
the home of innumerable rooks who strewed the air 
about the topmost branches, wheeling and cawing. The 
square tower of a church stood upon a little hill. 

“It’s friendly, isn’t it?” he cried, and a look of com¬ 
miseration made the eyes of the girl at his side tender. 
Would he think this countryside so friendly when the 
evening was over and he had got to his room ? 

“Do you know our Downs?” 

Phyllis spoke at random and hastily as he turned 
towards her. 

“I wonder,” he answered. “Could I have forgotten 
them if I had once known them? I seem to have been 
within a finger’s breadth of recognising something.” 

“When you have seen my mother we will walk 
through the village. We shall have time before din¬ 
ner,” said Phyllis, and she turned the car into the 
carriage-way of a square old house with big windows 
level with the wall, which stood close to the road. 

Mrs. Vanderfelt, a middle-aged woman with shrewd 
and kindly eyes received him with a touch of nervous¬ 
ness in her manner and, as her daughter had done, 
talked volubly and a little at random whilst she was 
giving him some tea. 

“I don’t know what you would like to do until din¬ 
ner time,” she said, and Phyllis said: 


26 


The Winding Stair 

“I am going to show Mr. Ravenel the village.” 

A glance of comprehension was swiftly exchanged 
between the mother and the daughter, but not so 
swiftly but that Paul intercepted it. 

“You can get the key at Rapley’s,” said Mrs. Van- 
derfelt. 

The two young people came to four cross-roads, and 
Paul exclaimed: 

“Up the hill to the right, isn’t it?” 

“Yes.” 

They mounted the hill and Paul stopped. He pointed 
with his stick towards the signboard of an inn built on 
the high bank above the road. 

“Now I know. I lived here once as a child. I al¬ 
ways wondered why the Horse Guards had an inn 
here, and what sort of people they were. I used to 
imagine that they were half-horse, like the Centaurs, 
and I always hoped to see them.” 

Phyllis Vanderfelt laughed. 

“Isn’t that like a man ? I show you a place as beau¬ 
tiful as any in England and the only thing which you 
have remembered of it from the time when you were 
four is the place where you could get a drink.” 

“Yes, the Horseguards’ Inn,” repeated Paul cheer¬ 
fully. “Let us go on!” 

But it was now Phyllis who stopped with a face 
from which the merriment had gone. 

“I don’t know,” she said indecisively. “It shall be 
as you wish. But I wonder. We talked it all over at 
home. We couldn’t tell whether it would be helpful 
to you, whether you would care to remember every¬ 
thing to-morrrow—whether you already remembered. 
My father was quite clear that you should see every¬ 
thing. But I am not sure—” 


The Man with the Medals 27 

Paul felt the clutch of fear catching his breath once 
more as he looked into the girl’s compassionate eyes. 

“I am with your father,” he said. “My recollections 
are too faint. I can only remember what I see. Let 
us go on!” 

“Very well!” 

Phyllis Vanderfelt went into one of the cottages and 
came out again with a big key in her hand. Beyond 
the cottages a thick high hedge led on to an old rose- 
red house with an oriel window looking down the 
road from beneath a gable and a tiled roof golden 
with lichen. Wisteria draped the walls in front with 
purple. 

“It is empty,” said Phyllis, as she put the key into 
the lock and opened the door. The rooms were all 
dismantled, the floors uncarpeted. Paul Ravenel shook 
his head. 

“I remember nothing here.” 

Phyllis led him through a window into a garden. 
A group of beech trees sheltered the house from the 
southwest wind and beyond the beech trees from a 
raised lawn their eyes swept over meadows and a low 
ridge of black firs and once more commanded the 
shining Downs. Paul stood for a little while in silence, 
whilst Phyllis watched his face. There came upon it 
a look of perplexity and doubt. He turned back to¬ 
wards the house. On its south side, a window had 
been thrown out; on its tiled roof a wide band of 
white clematis streamed down like a great scarf. On 
the wall beside the window a great magnolia climbed. 

“Wait a moment,” cried Paul; and as he gazed his 
vision cleared. He saw, as the gifted see in a crystal, 
a scene small and distant and very bright. 

There was a table raised up on some sort of stand 


28 


The Winding Stair 

upon the gravel paths outside this window. A man 
was sitting at the table and a small crowd of people, 
laughing and jeering a little—an unkindly crowd—• 
was gathered about him. And furniture and orna¬ 
ments were brought out. He turned to Phyllis. 
“There was a sale here, ever so long ago—and I was 
present outside the crowd, looking on. I lived here, 
then ?” 

“Yes,” said Phyllis. 

“And it was our furniture which was being sold?” 

“Yes.” 

So far there was no surprise for Paul Ravenel, 
nothing which conflicted with his conception and esti¬ 
mate of his father. Monsieur Ravenel had sold off 
his furniture, just as he had changed his name and 
abode. It was part of the process of destroying all 
his associations with the country and people of his 
birth. Only—his recollections had revealed something 
new to him—and disquietingly significant. 

“Why were those who came to buy unfriendly and 
contemptuous?” he asked slowly. 

“Are you sure that they were?” Phyllis returned. 
But she did not look at Paul’s face and her voice was 
a little unsteady. 

“I am very sure about that,” said Paul. “A woman 
was with me, holding my hand. She led me away— 
yes—I was frightened by those noisy, jeering people, 
and she led me away. It was my nurse, I suppose. 
For my mother was dead.” 

“Yes,” replied Phyllis, and then, not knowing how 
hard she struck, she added, “Your mother had died a 
couple of months before the sale.” 

Paul Ravenel, during the last days, had been school¬ 
ing himself to a reserve of manner, but this statement, 


The Man with the Medals 29 

as of a thing well known which he too must be sup¬ 
posed to know, loosened all his armour. A startled 
cry burst from his lips. 

“What’s that?” he exclaimed, and with a frightened 
glance at his white face Phyllis repeated her words. 

“I thought you knew,” she added. 

“No.” 

Paul walked a little apart. One of the garden paths 
was bordered by some arches of roses. He stood by 
them, plucking at one or two of the flowers and see¬ 
ing none of them at all. The keystone of the explana¬ 
tion which he had built in order to account for and 
uphold his father was down now and with it the 
whole edifice. It had all depended upon the idea of 
a passionate, enduring love in his father’s heart for 
the wife who had died in giving birth to her son, the 
enemy. And in that idea there was no truth at all! 

Paul reflected now in bitterness that there never had 
been any reason why he should have held his belief— 
any wild outburst from Monsieur Ravenel, any word 
of tender remembrance. He had got his illusion—yes, 
he reached the truth now in this old garden—from an 
instinct to preserve himself from hating that stranger 
with whom he lived and on whom he depended for his 
food and the necessities of his life. He turned sud¬ 
denly back to Phyllis Vanderfelt. 

“What I don’t understand, Miss Phyllis, is how it is 
that remembering so much of other things here, I can 
remember nothing of my mother.” 

“She only came home here to die,” Phyllis replied 
gently. 

Paul pressed his hands over his eyes for a moment 
or two in a gesture of pain which made the young 
girl’s heart ache for him. But he looked at her calmly 


30 


The Winding Stair 

afterwards and said: “I am afraid that Colonel Van- 
derfelt has very bad news to tell me to-night.” 

Phyllis Vanderfelt laid her hand gently upon his 
arm. 

“You will remember that you have made very real 
friends here in a very short time, won’t you?” she 
pleaded. “My mother and myself.” 

“Thank you,” said Paul. 

Yet another shock was waiting for him in Colonel 
Vanderfelt’s house. For as he entered the drawing 
room three-quarters of an hour later, a tall man lifted 
himself with an effort from an easy chair and with 
the help of a stick limped across the room towards 
him. 

“This is my husband,” said Mrs. Vanderfelt, and 
before Paul could check his tongue, the cry had sprung 
from his lips: 

“The man with the medals!” 

The older man’s eyes flashed with a sudden anger. 
Mrs. Vanderfelt gasped and flushed red. Phyllis took 
a step forward. All had a look as if they had suf¬ 
fered some bitter and intolerable insult. 

Paul quickly explained. “My father and I crossed 
you one night a long time ago when you were coming 
from a banquet at the Guildhall. You called to my 
father. I was a child, and I always remembered you 
as the man with the medals. The phrase jumped out 
when I saw you again.” 

The fire died out of Colonel Vanderfelt’s eyes. A 
look of pity sheathed them. 

“We will talk of all these things after dinner,” he 
said gently, and his hand clasped the youth’s arm. 
“Let us go in now.” 


CHAPTER III 


At King’s Corner 

”"\ERGUSON wrote to me that you mean to re- 
ri turn to your own race/’ said Colonel Van- 
derfelt, when the ladies had withdrawn from 
the dining room. He was a small, wiry man, dark of 
complexion, with a sleek black head of hair in which 
there was not one visible thread of grey. His face 
too was hardly lined, so that it was not until one looked 
at his eyes that one got any impression of age. The 
eyes, however, betrayed him. Deeply sunken and with 
a queer set appearance, they were the eyes of an old, 
old man; and they provoked a guess that they had at 
one time gazed so desperately upon horrors that they 
could never again quite get free of what they had 
seen. 

“Yes,” replied Paul. “Mr. Ferguson was not very 
sympathetic.” 

“Then I think he was wrong,” said Colonel Vander- 
felt heartily. “Philosophers and Labour leaders talk 
very placidly about throwing down the walls between 
nation and nation, as if it was an easy morning’s work. 
But the walls aren’t of our building. They are mother 
earth and climate and were there from the beginning 
of time. Some people can pass over them, of course— 
American women, especially. But very few men aren’t 
weaklings, I believe. To the men worth anything, 
their soil cries out louder and louder with each year 

that passes. A glass of port? Help yourself! A 

31 


32 


The Winding Stair 

cigar? No? The cigarettes are in that Battersea box 
in front of you. It’s a fiction that tobacco spoils the 
flavour of port. Claret, yes! Port, not a bit.” 

Colonel Vanderfelt took a cigar from a box upon 
a side table, lit it and resumed his seat. Paul brought 
him back to the subject of their talk. 

“1 am glad to hear you agree with me, Colonel 
Vanderfelt. I have been more and more convinced 
since I have sat in this room.” 

Paul Ravenel looked about the dining room with 
its fastidious and sober elegance. Cream walls, upon 
which a few good prints were hung; a bright red 
screen drawn in front of the door; shapely old furni¬ 
ture with red upholstery, and heavy curtains of red 
brocaded silk at the one big bow window; a long, 
slender Sheraton sideboard against the wall; a fine 
Chippendale cabinet in a recess; and this round gleam¬ 
ing table of mahogany, with its candlesticks and salt¬ 
cellars of Battersea enamel, its silver equipment and 
its short tubby decanters with the blue tinge of old 
Waterford in the glass; in every aspect of the room 
grace was so wedded to homeliness, comfort to dis¬ 
tinction that Paul could not but envy its possessors. 

”1 resume my race and with it of course my name,” 
he said, keenly watching Colonel Vanderfelt. 

But Colonel Vanderfelt took his cigar from his lips 
only to ask a question. 

“And then?” he enquired. 

“Then I propose to try for a commission in the 
army,” Paul replied. 

“Oh, yes,” said Colonel Vanderfelt, “but the Bar 
offers more opportunities to a young fellow nowa¬ 
days, doesn’t it? Why the Army? There are other 
professions.” 


33 


At King’s Corner 

“Not for me, sir.” 

Colonel Vanderfelt shrugged his shoulders and 
stared at the shining table in front of him. It was a 
devil of a world—everything cross-wise and upside 
down and unaccommodating. Why must this youth 
with money and the world to choose from, choose just 
the one bunch of grapes quite out of his reach? And 
set his very heart on it too. There had been a ring 
in that “Not for me, sir!” which could not be stilled 
by argument. It was youth’s challenge to the elders, 
its “I know better” which there was no use in de¬ 
bating. 

“Let me hear,” said Colonel Vanderfelt; and the 
lad’s ambitions were shyly revealed to him. Histories 
of campaigns, the lives of great soldiers, books of 
strategy too technical for him to follow—these had 
been his favourite reading. It was the actual work of 
the soldier which had fascinated Paul, not the glitter 
of the great days of parades and manoeuvres, but his 
daily responsibilities and the command of men and the 
glory of service. Colonel Vanderfelt listened and 
nodded and remembered a phrase in Mr. Ferguson’s 
letter: “The boy’s of the right temper.” Surely he 
was, and the whole business was perverse and pitiful! 
He heard Paul closing his little apologia. 

“So you see, sir, from the time when I began to 
think at all of what I should do in the world, this has 
always been my wish.” The lad was seeking to chal¬ 
lenge and defy, but the anxiety which had tortured him 
during the last four days turned the challenge into a 
prayer. He searched Colonel Vanderfelt’s face for a 
sign of agreement. “I know of nothing,” he asserted, 
of nothing at all which should hinder me from trying 
to fulfil my wish.” 



34 


The Winding Stair 

“But I do,” replied the other. “I think, Paul, that 
it would be very difficult for you to take your father’s 
name and seek a commission in the Army here.” 

Paul’s cigarette had gone out whilst he was speak¬ 
ing. He lit it now at one of the candles with trembling 
fingers. The gentleness of Colonel Vanderfelt’s voice 
made him think of some compassionate judge passing 
sentence. 

“You will, I trust, make that clear to me,” he said. 

“Of course,” returned the Colonel. “I admit to you 
that up to the last few minutes I had hoped to escape, 
and leave most of the story untold. And had you 
chosen another profession, why, very likely I should 
have spared you and myself, too.” 

But though he had promised to be frank, he was 
reluctant to begin and he had ended on so evident a 
note of discomfort and pain that Paul Ravenel dared 
not interpose a word. The windows stood open upon 
the garden and let into the room the perfume of flow¬ 
ers and the freshness of the dew. Outside was the 
glamorous twilight of a summer night. It was very 
still. Occasionally a bird rustled the leaves of a 
branch; and across a field a cuckoo whose voice was 
breaking called incessantly. Paul was never to forget 
that background to these moments of suspense. All 
the bitterness was not with him on this night. Colonel 
Vanderfelt was back in the dark places of his life 
amongst old shames and miseries. 

“Your father’s name was John Edward Revel,” 
he began, and the boy drew a long breath. “Yes, the 
infantry manual was his, some relic of the old days 
that he must keep, I suppose—some one small value¬ 
less thing—yes, I think that’s natural. He and I were 
friends. We passed out of Sandhurst together and 


At King’s Corner 35 

met again in India. Years afterwards—Service 
brought us together.” 

He named an outlying post in the hills to the north¬ 
west of Quetta where John Edward Revel and he lay 
beleaguered during one of the frontier wars. They 
were ordered to hold on to their position at all costs 
and help would come to them. 

“We were neither of us youngsters, you must un¬ 
derstand, pitchforked into commands we weren’t fit 
for. We had seen a lot of service and done well— 
both of us. That makes the matter worse perhaps. 
All the less excuse! That’s what they did say! We 
were losing men all the time, and we hadn’t many to 
begin with. Ammunition was running low, water still 
lower, we were attacked day and night, we two had 
no sleep, and the promised relief didn’t come. The 
Baluchis got into our outer court one evening and we 
had the greatest trouble to get them out. The same 
night one of our spies came in with the news that a 
fresh big force was hurrying to reinforce the Baluchis. 
We were pretty well at the end of our tether—Ravel 
and I—. Something snapped in both of us ... we 
slipped out under cover of darkness, the whole force, 
and fell back in spite of our instructions, leaving this 
key-post unguarded. And the new enemy we fell back 
from was our own relief expedition which had marched 
night and day and turned the Baluchis’ flank. They 
found the fort empty, which we had been ordered at 
all costs to hold. You can guess what happened. We 
were arrested, court-martialled—cashiered! So you 
can understand perhaps now our queer reception of 
you in the drawing room this evening. When you 
startled us by calling me, ‘The man with the medals,’ 
it sounded like some bitter jibe from those bad days.” 


36 


The Winding Stair 

“But I don’t understand,” Paul Ravenel stammered. 
“You were cashiered both of you, you and my father ?” 

“Both of us.” 

“Yet I saw you coming from a dinner at the Guild¬ 
hall, with your medals upon your breast. You are here 
in your own home, wearing your rank! How can that 
be, sir?” 

Colonel Vanderfelt replied with a curious accent of 
apology to his young guest. 

“I was lucky. I had served in India longer than 
your father. I had been more interested; and dialects 
came to me easily. More than once I had spent my 
leave living in the Bazaars, and as far north as Leh. 
Therefore it wasn’t so difficult for me. I disappeared. 
I’m a dark man naturally. I grew a beard. I joined 
a battalion of irregular levies. I served for three years 
in it on the frontier.” 

“Did no one guess who you were?” 

“I think one or two suspected and—winked. They 
were busy years you see. A good deal was going on 
all this time and men who knew anything about sol¬ 
diering were valuable. Of course they were pretty 
rough, hard years for any one with delicate tastes, but 
there was so much to be perhaps regained,” and Colonel 
Vanderfelt pulled himself up quickly. “Well, after 
three years I was wounded rather badly. As you see 
I limp to this day. It looked then as if the game was 
up altogether and I was going out. So I sent a mes¬ 
sage in my own name to an officer on the border whom 
I had known. The Governor of Quetta came up him¬ 
self to see me in hospital and the end of it was that 
my sentence was annulled. There, my boy, that’s the 
whole story.” 

Colonel Vanderfelt rose from his chair and limping 


37 


At King’s Corner 

over to the window looked out upon that quiet garden, 
which he had lost, and after such unlovely years won 
back again. They were years of which he could never 
think even now without a shiver of disgust and a cold 
fear lest by some impossibility they should come again. 
None indeed had ever known the full measure of their 
abasement and squalor and degradation. Even with 
the great prize continually held in view, they had been 
hardly endurable. The chance of winning it had been 
the chance of a raft to a man drowning in the Pacific. 
The voice of Paul Ravenel who was still seated at the 
table broke in upon him. 

“And that’s the whole story, sir?” 

“Yes, Paul.” 

Paul shook his head. 

“The whole story, sir, except that what you did— 
my father didn’t. Therefore he lived and died an out¬ 
cast,” and the young man’s voice died away in a whis¬ 
per. 

Colonel Vanderfelt turned back to him and laid his 
hand upon Paul’s shoulder and shook it in a gentle 
sympathy. 

“There’s another question I would like to have an¬ 
swered,” said Paul. He was very pale, but his voice 
was firm again. 

“Yes?” 

“The disgrace, I suppose, killed my mother?” 

“I have no right to say that.” 

“The truth, sir, please!” and the appeal came so 
clearly from a man in the extremity of torture, that 
Colonel Vanderfelt could not but answer it. 

“It did. She was in India when this shameful busi¬ 
ness happened. She came home and died.” 

In a few moments Paul began to laugh. The laugh- 


38 The Winding Stair 

ter was pitched in a low key and horrible to hear; and 
there was such a flame of agony burning in the boy's 
eyes and so dreadful a grin upon his white face that 
Colonel Vanderfelt feared for his reason. 

“Steady, Paul, steady!” he said gently. 

“I was thinking of the fine myth by which I ex¬ 
plained everything to the honour of the family,” Paul 
cried in a bitter voice. “Our seclusion, the antagonism 
between my father and me, the change of name—it 
was all due to a morbid grief at the loss of a wife too 
deeply loved. That's what I believed, sir,” he said 
wildly, but Colonel Vanderfelt had already learned 
of these delusions from Mr. Ferguson. “And shame’s 
the explanation. Disgrace is the explanation. He 
killed my mother with it and now the son too must 
hide!” 

“No,” said Colonel Vanderfelt with decision. 
“There’s a good way out of this tangle for you, a way 
by which you may still reach all you have set your 
heart on—your career, your name and an honoured 
place amongst your own people.” 

Paul lifted incredulous eyes to the other man's face. 

“Yes,” insisted the older man. “You don't believe 
me. You young fellows see only the worst and the 
best, and if the best doesn’t tumble into your hands, 
you are sure at once that there’s nothing for you but 
the worst. Just listen to me!” 

Paul took hold upon himself. He was ashamed al¬ 
ready of his outburst. 

“You are very kind, sir,” he said, and some ap¬ 
preciation of the goodwill which the older man had 
shown to him, in baring his own wounds, and draw¬ 
ing out into the light again old humiliations and guilt 
long since atoned, pierced even through the youth's 


At King’s Corner 39 

sharp consciousness of his own miseries. He rose up 
from his chair. He was in command of his emotions 
now, his voice was steady. 

“I have been thinking too much of myself and the 
distress into which this revelation has plunged me,” 
he said, “and too little of your great consideration 
and kindness. What you have told me, you cannot 
have said without pain and a good deal of reluctance. 
I am very grateful. Indeed I wonder why you ever 
received me here at all.” 

“You would have found out the truth without my 
help.” 

“That’s what I mean,” said Paul. “I should have 
found it out through an enquiry agent, and the news 
would have been ten times more hideous coming in 
that way rather than broken gently here. Whilst on 
the other hand you would have spared yourself.” 

“That’s all right,” Colonel Vanderfelt answered 
uncomfortably, and to himself he added: “Yes, old 
Ferguson wrote the truth. That boy’s clean and a 
gentleman.” He pressed Paul down into his chair 
again. 

“Come! Take a glass of this old brandy first—it’s 
not so bad—and then we’ll talk your prospects over 
like the men of the world we both are—eh? Neither 
making light of serious things nor exaggerating them 
until we make endeavour useless.” 

He fetched to the table a couple of big goblets 
mounted on thin stems within which delicate spirals 
had been blown, and poured a liqueur of his best 
brandy into each. 

“I have an idea, Paul. It has been growing all the 
time we have been talking together. Let’s see if it 
means anything to you.” 


40 The Winding Stair 

He held his goblet to his nose and smelt the brandy. 
“Pretty good, this! Try it, Paul. There’s not a 
cough nor a splutter in it. Well, now,” he went on 
when Paul had taken his advice, “in the first place, you 
are eighteen.” 

“Yes,” said Paul. 

“And a man of means?” 

“Pretty well.” 

“You have property in Casablanca, in Morocco?” 

“Yes, sir,” said Paul, wondering whither all these 
questions were to lead. 

“And you lived there for some years ?” 

“Yes. Before I went to school in France and my 
father built his house in Aguilas.” 

“You know Arabic, then?” 

“The Moorish dialect, yes.” 

“And by nationality you are French?” 

“Yes,” answered Paul reluctantly. 

“Good,” said the Colonel, warming to his theme. 
“Now listen to me. The French must move in Mo¬ 
rocco, as we moved in India, as we moved in Egypt. 
It isn’t a question of policies or persons. It’s the 
question of the destiny of a great nation. The in¬ 
stinct of life and self-preservation in a great nation 
which sooner or later breaks all policies and persons 
that stand in the way. There’ll be the timid ones 
who’ll say no! And there’ll be the intriguers who’ll 
treat the question as a pawn to be moved in their own 
interest. But in the end they won’t matter.” Colonel 
Vanderfelt had a complete and not very knowledgeable 
contempt for politics and politicians like most of his 
calling until they have joined the ranks of the poli¬ 
ticians themselves. 


41 


At King’s Corner 

“Morocco can’t remain as it is—a vast country with 
a miserable population, misgoverned if governed at all, 
with a virgin soil the richest in the world, and within 
a few miles of Europe. Somebody’s got to go in and 
sort it up. And that some one’s got to be France, 
for she can’t afford a possible enemy on her Algerian 
frontier. Yes, but there’ll be trouble before she suc¬ 
ceeds in her destiny, trouble and—opportunity.” The 
Colonel paused to let that word sink into Paul’s mind. 
“Why not be one of those who’ll seize it? They are 
great soldiers, the French. Join them, since that’s 
your way of life. Go through the schools, get your 
commission in France and then strive heart and soul 
to get service in the country whose language you know, 
the country of opportunity. Then, in God’s good 
time, if you still so wish it, come back here, resume 
your own name, rejoin your own race!” 

Paul Ravenel, from his solitary dreaming life and 
his age, was inclined to be impressed by thoughts of 
sacrifice and expiation and atonement. He was there¬ 
fore already half persuaded by Colonel Vanderfelt’s ad¬ 
vice. It would be exile, as he had come to think, but it 
would also be a cleansing of his name, an expiation of 
his father’s crime. And after all, when he looked at 
the man who gave him this advice, and remembered 
what he had endured with a hope so much more in¬ 
finitesimal, the course proposed to him seemed fortu¬ 
nate and light. 

“Thank you,” he said. “I should like to think over 
your idea.” 

Colonel Vanderfelt was pleased that there had been 
no flighty hysterical acceptance, no assumption that 
the goal was as good as reached. 


42 


The Winding Stair 

“Yes, take your time!” 

Colonel Vanderfelt rose and, removing the shades, 
blew out the candles upon the dining-table. 

“I don’t know what you would like to do?” he said, 
turning to the lad. “You will follow your own wish, 
of course. And if you would rather go straight now 
to your room, why, we shall all understand.” 

“Thank you, but I should prefer to join the ladies 
with you.” 

Colonel Vanderfelt smiled very pleasantly. The 
anticipation of Paul’s visit had caused him a sleepless 
night or two and not a little pain. How much should 
he tell ? The question had been troubling him, so that 
he had more than once sat down to write to Mr. 
Ferguson that he would not receive the boy at all. 
He was very glad now that he had, and that he had 
kept nothing back. 

“Come, then,” he said. 

In the drawing room Phyllis Vanderfelt sang to that 
little company some songs of old Herrick in a small, 
very sweet, clear voice. Paul sat near the long, open 
window. The music, the homely friendliness within 
the room, and the quiet garden over which slept so 
restful a peace were all new to him and wrought upon 
him till he felt the tears rising to his eyes. Phyllis’ 
hands were taken from the keys and lay idle in her 
lap. In the high trees of the Park upon the far side 
of the road the owls were calling and the cuckoo still 
repeated his two notes from the tree beyond the field. 
Paul rose suddenly to his feet. 

“That throaty old cuckoo means to make a night of 
it,” he said with a laugh which was meant to hide the 
break in his voice and did not succeed. He stepped 
over the threshold and was out of sight. 


43 


At King s Corner 

“Let him be!” said Colonel Vanderfelt. And a 
little later, when Phyllis had taken herself off to bed: 
“I liked him very much. The right temper—that’s 
the phrase old Ferguson used. He’ll do well, Milly— 
you’ll see. We shall see him home here one day car¬ 
rying his sheaves,” and as his wife remained silent he 
looked at her anxiously. “Don’t you agree with me?” 

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Vanderfelt answered slowly. 
“I hope so with all my heart. But—didn’t you notice 
his looks and a sort of grace he has?” 

“Well?” asked the Colonel. 

“Well, we have left out one consideration altogether. 
What part are women going to play in his life? A 
large one. Tom, I have been watching Phyllis to¬ 
night. A day or so more, and we should have an 
aching heart in this house.” 

“Yes, I see,” returned Colonel Vanderfelt. “Women 
do upset things, don’t they?” 

“Or get upset,” said Mrs. Vanderfelt. “And some¬ 
times both.” 


CHAPTER IV 


Betwixt and Between 


P AUL RAVENEL left Colonel Vanderfelt’s 
house of King’s Corner on the next morning in 
time to catch an early train to London. His 
friends gathered in the drive to wave him a good-bye 
as he drove away. 

'‘You’ll write to us, won’t you?” said Mrs. Van- 
derfelt. 

“And there’s a room here whenever you have an 
evening to spare,” added the Colonel. 

Paul had quite captured the hearts of the small 
household and they were hardly less concerned for his 
future and his success than they would have been had 
he been their own son. 

Paul had given no hint at the breakfast table of his 
plans, if indeed he had yet formed any, nor did his 
friends press him with any question. But they waited 
anxiously for letters and in time one came with the 
postmark of St. Germain. Paul had passed into St. 
Cyr. Others followed with lively enough accounts of 
his surroundings and companions. Here and there 
the name of a friend was mentioned, Gerard de 
Montignac, Paul’s senior by a year, for instance, who 
cropped up more often than any one else. 

They heard later that he had passed out with hon¬ 
ours and was now a sub-lieutenant in the 174th Regi¬ 
ment, stationed at Marseilles; then a couple of years 

later, just at the time when Phyllis was married, that 

44 


Betwixt and Between 


45 


he had been seconded to the 2nd Tirailleurs and was 
on active service amongst the Beni-Snassen in Al¬ 
geria. He escaped from that campaign without any 
hurt and wrote a little account of it to his friends at 
King’s Corner, with some shrewd pictures of his com¬ 
manders and brother officers. But the same reticence 
overspread the pages. Mrs. Vanderfelt was at a loss to 
recapture out of them a picture of the lad who had 
stayed one night with them and borne so gallantly the 
destruction of his boyish illusions. The letters, to her 
thinking, might have been written by an automaton 
with a brain. 

A few months afterwards Colonel Vanderfelt 
slammed down his newspaper on the breakfast table. 

“That’s where Paul ought to be. I told him! You 
can’t blame me! I told him!” 

The long-expected trouble in Morocco was coming 
to a head. The extravagance and incapacity of the 
Sultan Abd-el-Aziz; the concession of the Customs to 
the French; the jealousies of powerful kaids; and the 
queer admixture of contempt and fear with which the 
tribes watched the encroachments of Europeans; all 
these elements were setting the country on fire. Al¬ 
ready there were rumours of disorder in the wealthy 
coast town of Casablanca. 

“That’s where Paul ought to be,” cried Colonel 
Vanderfelt angrily. But his anger was appeased in a 
couple of days. For he received a letter from Paul 
with the postmark of Oran, written on shipboard. He 
and his battalion were on their way to Casablanca. 

They arrived after the bombardment and massacres, 
and served under General D’Amade throughout the 
campaigns of the Chaouia. Paul was wounded in the 
thigh during the attack upon Settat but was able to 


46 


The Winding Stair 

rejoin his battalion in a month. He was now a senior 
Lieutenant and his captain being killed in the fight at 
McKoun, he commanded his company until the district 
was finally pacified by the victory over the great kaid 
and Marabout, Bou Nuallah. Paul had done well; he 
was given the medaille and at the age of twenty-six 
was sure that his temporary rank would be confirmed. 
He wrote warmly of those days to his friends. There 
was a note of confidence and elation which Mrs. Van- 
derfelt had not remarked before, and the letter ended 
with a short but earnest expression of gratitude to his 
friends for the help they had given him eight years 
before. 

For the next two years, then, the household at 
King’s Corner read only of the routine of a great camp, 
described with a lively spirit and an interest in the 
little trifles of his profession, which was a clear proof 
to them all that Paul had seen straight and clearly 
when he had declared: “There’s no other profession 
for me.” Thereafter came news which thrilled his 
audience. 

“I am transferred to the General Staff,” Paul wrote, 
“and am leaving here on special service. You must 
not expect to hear from me for a long while.” 

Neither Colonel Vanderfelt nor his wife had quite 
realised how they had counted on Paul’s letters, or 
what a fresh, lively interest they brought into their 
quiet lives, until this warning reached them. 

“Of course we can’t expect to hear,” said Colonel 
Vanderfelt irritably, “Paul’s probably on very impor¬ 
tant service. Very often a postmark’s enough to give 
a clue. But you women don’t understand these things.” 

Phyllis, the married daughter, and Mrs. Vanderfelt 


Betwixt and Between 


47 


were the women to whom this rebuke was addressed, 
and neither of them had said a word to provoke it. 

“No doubt, dear,” Mrs. Vanderfelt replied meekly, 
with a private smile for the daughter. “We shall hear 
in due time.” 

But the weeks ran into months, the months into a 
year, and still no letter came. At one moment they 
wondered whether new associations had not obliterated 
from Paul's mind his former aspirations: at another, 
whether he still lived. Colonel Vanderfelt ran across 
Mr. Ferguson towards the end of the year outside his 
club in Piccadilly and made enquiries. 

“Did you ever hear of that boy, Paul Ravenel, 
again?” he asked. 

“Oh, yes, he’s a rich man now and I have acted for 
him,” returned Mr. Ferguson. “Since the French oc¬ 
cupation, land in and around Casablanca has gone up 
to fifty times its former value. Ravenel has realised 
some of it. I have bought the freehold of his father’s 
house close to you and let it for seven years and in¬ 
vested a comfortable sum for him in British securities. 
So I gather that he means to come back in a little 
while.” 

Colonel Vanderfelt was relieved upon one score, but 
it was only to have his anxiety increased upon the 
other. 

“When did you hear from Paul last?” he asked, 
and Mr. Ferguson answered: 

“Some while ago. Let me think. Yes, it must be 
a year at the least.” 

Colonel Vanderfelt repeated the conversation to his 
wife on his return to King’s Corner, and both of them 
shirked the question which was heavy at their hearts. 


48 The Winding Stair 

“It will be pleasant to have him as a neighbour,” 
said Mrs. Vanderfelt. 

“Yes,” replied the Colonel. “And it might be quite 
soon! Seven years he has let the house for. And we 
are getting no younger, are we! The sooner the bet¬ 
ter, I say!” 

Some look upon his wife’s face, a droop of her 
shoulders, made him stop; and it was in a quiet and 
strangely altered voice that he began again: 

“We are both pretending, Milly, and that’s the truth. 
We are afraid. It would be hard lines if he died 
before he did what he aimed to do. Yet we have got 
to face that possibility.” 

Mrs. Vanderfelt was turning over a plan in her 
mind. 

“I think that it’s time we had news of him,” she 
said. “There’s a friend he has mentioned several 
times in his letters. He was with him at St. Cyr and 
met him again at Casablanca—Gerard de Montignac.” 

Colonel Vanderfelt went in search of Paul Ravenel’s 
letters. They were kept in a drawer of the writing- 
table in his bedroom and made a big bundle by now. 

“De Montignac. That was the fellow’s name. Let’s 
look at the last ones for his rank. He’s a captain of 
the Chasseurs d’Afrique. I’ll write to Casablanca to¬ 
night, my dear, on the chance of his still being there.” 

Colonel Vanderfelt was easier in his mind after he 
had posted the letter. 

“That was a good idea of mine, Millie,” he said to 
his wife. “We shall get some news now.” 

Gerard de Montignac was still in Casablanca, but 
at the time when Colonel Vanderfelt was writing to 
him, he was himself just as anxious as the Colonel 
about the safety of Paul Ravenel. 


CHAPTER V 


The Villa Iris 


T HERE’S not the slightest reason for alarm,” 
Gerard de Montignac declared testily in 
much the same tone which Colonel Vander- 
felt was using to his wife nearly two thousand miles 
away. De Montignac was dining at the “popote” of 
his battalion in the permanent camp of Ain Bourdja 
outside the walls of Casablanca, and more than once 
of late Ravenel’s long absence had cropped up in the 
conversation with a good deal of shaking of heads. 
“Paul is a serious one,” continued Gerard. “Too seri¬ 
ous. That is his fault. He will not pack up and 
return until the last possible observation is taken, the 
last notes of value written down in his little book. 
But then he will. I am not afraid for him, no, not 
the least bit in the world. And who should be, I ask 
you, if I am not?” 

He glanced round the mess but not one of his com¬ 
panions accepted his challenge. It was not, however, 
because they shared his confidence. Indeed every one 
was well aware that more than half of it was assumed. 
They respected a great friendship sealed nearly three 
years before on the bloody slopes of R’Fakha. De 
Montignac, with his squadron of Chasseurs, had rid¬ 
den in that desperate charge by means of which alone 
the crest of the plateau had been held until the in¬ 
fantry arrived. The charge had been made down a 

hillside seamed with tiny gullies invisible until they 

49 


50 The Winding Stair 

gaped beneath the horses’ feet; and the difficulties of 
the ground had so split the small force of cavalry that 
the attack became a series of scattered tourneys in 
which each overmatched trooper drove at a group of 
Moors armed with rifles and many of them mounted. 
There had been but ten minutes of the unequal fight, 
but those minutes were long enough for each man who 
fell wounded to pray with all his soul that the wound 
might be swift and mortal and do its work before the 
mutilating knife flashed across his face. Gerard de 
Montignac lay half way down the slope with a bullet 
in his shoulder and his thigh pinned to the ground 
beneath the weight of his grey charger. The Moors 
were already approaching him when Paul’s company 
of Tirailleurs doubled up to the crest and Paul recog¬ 
nised the horse. His rescue of his friend was one of 
twenty such acts done upon that day, but the memory 
of them all lived and stopped many an argument as it 
did to-night. If Gerard de Montignac chose to cry 
obstinately: “Some day Paul Ravenel will walk in 
upon us. He is my friend. I know,” it was the part of 
friendliness to acquiesce. There were other topics for 
dispute, enough in all conscience; such as the new 
dancing girl who had come that week to Madame Dela- 
grange’s Bar, the Villa Iris, and about whom young 
Ollivier Praslin was raving at the other end of the 
table. 

Paul Ravenel had slipped quietly away now more 
than a year ago in the black gabardine and skull cap 
of a Jew pedlar with a few surveying instruments 
packed in cheap, dirty boxes of white wood hidden 
amongst his wares on the back of a mule, and a few 
penny account books in which to jot his notes. He 
set out to explore the countries of the Beni M’Tir and 


The Villa Iris 


51 


the Gerouan tribes, to blacken the white spaces of the 
map by means of long and perilous journeys. There 
were no tribes more implacable and fanatical than 
these; none whose territories at that time were so little 
known; and since they held the mountain passes and 
the great forests which border the trade routes from 
the south and the west to Fez, none whose strong¬ 
holds and numbers and resources it was more important 
that the Administration should know. 

“A Jew travelling alone, carrying on a mule such 
valuable things as needles and reels of thread, matches 
and safety pins, and some bales of cloth will be able 
to go where even a Moor of another tribe would lose 
his life,” he had declared, and for a long time in vain. 

“And what about your notes? How will you make 
them?” asked the officer of the Affaires Indigenes, to 
whom after much persistence he was referred. 

“I have a shorthand. They will take little space. 
I have a small tent, too. I shall make them at night.” 

“And if you are caught making them at night?” 

“I shall be making up my accounts—that is all.” 

The Native Department, however, still shook its 
head. “A Jew will be robbed, no doubt, and probably 
kicked and cuffed from tent village to tent village,” 
pleaded Ravenel. “But he will not be killed. He car¬ 
ries useful things.” 

In the end his persistence had won the day. He had 
been given a list of a few sure friends, a kaid here and 
there, on whose good will he could rely; and once or 
twice some news of him from one or other of these 
friends had come in a roundabout fashion to the head¬ 
quarters of the Administration at Rabat. But the last 
of these messages were more than six months old, and 
Paul Ravenel himself was two months’ overdue. 


52 


The Winding Stair 

Gerard de Montignac was gloomily weighing up his 
friend’s chances when a louder burst of laughter came 
from young Lieutenant Praslin’s corner. 

“I tell you she is young and she is pretty, and she 
can dance,” Praslin was protesting, quite red in the face 
with the fervour of his defence. 

“And she is at old Delagrange’s Bar in Casablanca!” 
cried an officer, laughing. 

Here at all events was a statement which could be 
received with incredulity. 

“But I am not the only one to say so,” exclaimed 
Praslin. 

“Then we must admit that the case is serious,” said 
Commandant Marnier very gravely. “Come, let us 
consider the case of the young lady. Who is this 
other who agrees with you, my friend ?” 

Praslin began to stammer. Commandant Marnier 
of the Zouaves was the heavy gun of the mess, a dis¬ 
illusioned man of forty-five with a satirical and at 
times a bitter tongue. 

“Who is this other?” he asked, leaning forward. 

“Little Boutreau of the Legion,” Praslin answered 
miserably. 

“Name of a name, here is an authority!” cried the 
Commandant. “And how old is the little Boutreau?” 

“Twenty-four.” 

“Yes? And where has the little Boutreau been sta¬ 
tioned ?” 

Young Praslin’s voice got smaller and smaller as he 
replied: “For the last two years on an advanced post 
upon the Algerian frontier.” 

“Where no doubt he has had full opportunity to 
compute the beauty of women,” said the Commandant 
sagely. “I think we can now construct a picture of 


The Villa Iris 


53 


this houri. She will be fifty if she is a day. In the 
colour and texture of her skin she will be very like 
a fig. Not all the kohl in the East will lend a sparkle 
to her eyes, nor all the red salve freshness to her faded 
lips. She will wear a red dress with a swaying whale¬ 
boned skirt glittering with spangles and she will tell 
you that she dined at the Ritz in Paris a fortnight 

ag °” 

The description was not inept, but his voice changed 
now into a snarl. Commandant Marnier had the ill 
humour of men who sit all their lives in the company 
of their juniors and see themselves overpassed by each 
in turn. 

“The ladies of the Villa Iris! Have we not all 
sought our good fortune at their hands? The poor 
pilgrims! Here they have reached the last stage but 
one in their doleful Pilgrimage. Paris, Madrid, Barce¬ 
lona, Oran, Tangiers, Casablanca and then up on the 
supply wagons to the advanced Posts of the Legion 
from which there is no return! Francine, Florette, 
Hortense—oh, the pretty names! Yes, that’s about 
all they have left when they reach this fine metropolis 
of Casablanca—their pretty names!” 

He rose with a contemptuous movement from his 
chair, and Gerard de Montignac asked carelessly, with 
a mind far away from the subject. 

“And what is the name of this girl?” 

“Marguerite Lambert, an American,’” replied Pras- 
lin, and close by Gerard, a young lieutenant of spahis 
who had disembarked that morning from Oran raised 
himself half out of his chair and sank back again. 

“Do you know her, too?” Gerard asked. 

“No,” replied the lieutenant. “Yet I have danced 
with her”; and he sat wondering not so much that 


54 The Winding Stair 

Marguerite Lambert had come to Casablanca as that 
he should not have guessed after that short stay of 
hers at Oran that it was to Casablanca she must and 
would come. 

Gerard de Montignac moved round the table to 
Henri Ratenay, an officer of his own regiment who had 
made the campaign of Chaiouia with him and 
Ravenel. 

“Shall we go to the Villa Iris?” he said. 

Ratenay laughed and lifted his cap down from a 

peg- 

“What! Has Praslin fired you? Let us go.” 

But outside the long wooden building with its 
verandah of boards, Gerard de Montignac stopped. 
Marguerite Lambert roused no curiosity in him at this 
moment. 

“A man from the Native Department called Bau¬ 
mann came from Rabat to-day to see the General. I 
hear that he has some news of Paul. He returns to 
Rabat to-morrow, but I was told that I might find him 
to-night at the Villa Iris. Let us go, then! For 
though I laugh, I am very anxious.” 

Gerard de Montignac was an officer of a type not 
rare in the French Army. An aristocrat to his finger 
tips, a youth with one foot in the drawing rooms of 
the Faubourg and the other in the cafes of Mont¬ 
martre, and contemptuous of politics, he had turned 
his back on Paris like so many of his kind and sought 
a career in the colonial army of France. He kept up 
a plentiful correspondence with the beautiful ladies of 
his acquaintance, which did him no good with his 
masters at the War Office. For the ladies would quote 
his letters at their dinner parties. “What do you 
think? I had a letter from Gerard to-day. He says 


The Villa Iris 


55 


that such a mistake was made, etc., etc.” But he was 
not a gossip. He was a student, a soldier with a note 
book and more than one little brochure giving a limpid 
account of a campaign, bore witness to his ambition 
and his zeal. He was twenty-nine at this date, a year 
and a half older than Paul; gay and unexacting in his 
pleasures. “One soon gets used to the second best,” 
was a phrase of his, capable of much endurance and 
under a gay demeanour rather hard; a good comrade 
but a stern enemy; with no liking for games and not 
a sportsman at all in the English sense, but a brilliant 
horseman, a skilled fencer and hard, throughout his 
long lean body, as flesh can be. Women had not 
touched him deeply but he loved to be spoken of 
amongst them; he was flattered that one woman should 
envy another because that other received letters from 
him; if he had a passion at all it was for this country 
in which he served and to which he gave gladly his 
years of youth and his years of manhood. It was a 
new thing to him, half problem, half toy, at once a 
new rib to the frame of France and a jewel to be 
worthily set. On the one hand a country which wide 
motor roads and schools of intensive farming and the 
conversion of migratory tribes into permanent house¬ 
holders would develop, on the other a place of beau¬ 
tiful shrines and exquisite archways and grim old 
kasbahs with crenelated walls which must be preserved 
against the encroaching waves of commerce. In ap¬ 
pearance he was thin and long and without pretension 
to good looks. His hair was receding a little from his 
forehead; and his nose was sharp and gave to his face 
the suggestion of a sabre; and he was as careful of his 
hands and his finger nails as if he were still living 
amongst the Duchesses. Moreover, he had a great 


56 The Winding Stair 

love of Paul Ravenel, and as he looked about him on 
that hot night of early April, his anxiety increased. 
For the town was thronged with new troops, new com¬ 
panies of sappers, new artillery men. The information 
. from the interior of the country was alarming. The 
fires of hatred were blazing up against Mulai Hafid, 
the new Sultan, as they had three years before against 
Abd-el-Aziz. And for the same reason. He had sold 
himself and his country to the Christians. Through¬ 
out the town there was excitement and unrest. A 
movement must be made forward and this time to Fez. 
Rumour had it that the Sultan was actually beleaguered 
there. And somewhere out in the wild, fierce country 
Paul Ravenel was wandering. 

“Let us hurry!” said Gerard de Montignac. 

The Villa Iris stood in one of the meanest of the 
alleys to the left of the great landward gate—a dingy, 
long, green house with all its windows on the street 
carefully shuttered and something sinister in its aspect, 
as though it was the house of dark stories. When 
De Montignac and Ratenay stopped in front of it not 
a light was showing, but from somewhere far within 
there came the tinkle of a piano. 

De Montignac pushed open the door and took a step 
down into a long, dark passage. They advanced for 
a few feet and then the door at the other end was 
thrown open, letting in a glare of lights and a great 
noise. Some one with the light behind him came to¬ 
wards them. Beyond that he was an officer in uni¬ 
form they knew nothing of him until they heard his 
voice. 

“So you have come to see for yourself, eh?” he 
cried gaily. “But you will do more than see to-night. 
Such a crowd in there!” and Praslin went past them. 



The Villa Iris 57 

“What in the world was he talking about ?” asked 
Gerard. 

“Marguerite Lambert, I suppose,” replied Ratenay 
with a laugh. Gerard, for his part, had forgotten all 
about her. Nor did she dwell at all in his thoughts 
now. He went vaguely forward and found himself 
in a grotesque imitation of a Moorish room, cheap 
tiles of the bathroom kind, pillars carved and painted 
to mimic the delicate handicraft of Moorish workmen, 
a blaze of light from unshaded globes, and a long, 
glittering bar behind which Madame Delagrange pre¬ 
sided, a red-faced woman cast in so opulent a mould 
that he who looked at her perspired almost as freely as 
she did herself. The bar stood against a wall opposite 
to the door, and between there were rows of little three- 
legged iron tables, at which Levantines, clerks, shop¬ 
keepers of every nationality and a few French officers 
were seated. In front of the tables a few couples 
gyrated in a melancholy fashion to a fox-trot thumped 
out upon an old and tortured piano by a complacent 
Greek. If there could be anything worse on this hot 
night than the glare of light and tawdry decorations, 
it was the heart-rending racket of the piano. But 
dancers, decorations, piano and glare were all lost upon 
Gerard de Montignac. 

At the side of the Bar, wide double doors stood open 
upon a platform roofed over with a vine; and in that 
doorway stood the officer of the Native Department, 
of which he was in search. 

“Baumann!” he cried, and crossed the room. 

Baumann, a middle-aged, stockish Alsatian, long 
since settled in Algeria, to whom this Bar seemed the 
very epitome of devil-may-care luxury and pleasure, 
surveyed the Captain of Chasseurs with deference. 


58 


The Winding Stair 

“It is gay here,” he said with a smile. “Life, my 
Captain, the life of Paris and the Boulevards. You 
want to speak to me ? Yes ? We shall be quieter here.” 

He turned back with almost a sigh of regret to the 
boarded verandah under the vines. To Gerard the 
verandah was a relief. Here at all events it was cool 
and dark, and the piano did not thump upon the brain 
with so exasperating a poignancy. There was a table 
empty at the end where a couple of steps led down 
into a dark garden. 

“Let us sit here!” said Gerard, and when the three 
were seated and the drinks ordered from a person of 
indefinable nationality dressed up as a Turk, he leaned 
forward. 

“You have news of Paul Ravenel?” 

“News? I couldn’t say as much as that,” replied 
Baumann. “I was at Meknes when the thing occurred, 
before Meknes had declared for its new patent Pre¬ 
tender. It’s five months ago.” 

Baumann checked his speech and looked over 
Gerard’s shoulder intently into the dark garden. 
Gerard was sitting by the edge of the verandah, with 
his face turned eagerly towards Baumann. 

“What’s the matter?” Gerard asked impatiently. 

“Nothing, I think. Nothing really.” 

But nevertheless Baumann appeared a little uneasy 
and his eyes still held their gaze in the same direction. 
Ratenay turned. At the first he could see nothing to 
account for the alertness which had come so swiftly 
into Baumann’s face. Then he made out a black 
figure sitting or crouching upon the low edge of the 
verandah some way behind Gerard de Montignac, just 
in the edge of the lights, and more in shadow than in 
light. Gerard had not moved by so much as the 


The Villa Iris 59 

twitch of a limb. He rapped, however, now upon the 
iron table with his knuckles. 

“Come, Baumann!” he said sharply. “You were at 
Meknes five months ago. Well!” 

“I had finished my business/’ Baumann replied hur¬ 
riedly, but speaking in a lower voice than he had used 
before. “I was on my way back to Rabat by the plain 
of the Sebou. You know how the track runs from 
Meknes, due north over rolling country, then along 
the flank of the Zarhoun mountain to a pass.” 

“Yes.” 

“Half way to the pass stand the Roman ruins of 
Volubilis.” 

“Yes.” 

“But they lie off the track to the right and close 
under the mountain, and worse than that, close under 
the sacred City of Mulai Idris, which is forbidden 
ground.” 

Both Ratenay and Gerard de Montignac knew well 
enough the evil reputation of that inviolate city where 
the Founder of the Moorish Empire had his tomb. 
A hive of bandits and fanatics who lived upon the 
fame of the tomb, and when the offerings were insuf¬ 
ficient made good the balance by murder and highway 
robbery. No European could pass within the walls 
of that town, and even to approach them was venture¬ 
some. 

“I turned off with my small escort,” continued Bau¬ 
mann, “to visit those ruins, but even before we reached 
them we heard a clamour from the walls of the City, 
far away as it was. And the leader of the escort was 
very anxious that I should not delay amongst those tall, 
broken pillars and huge, fallen blocks of stone. So 
I hurried over my visit, but even then, half way be- 


60 


The Winding Stair 

tween us and the track a line of men armed and some 
of them mounted sprang up from the bushes of 
asphodel and barred our return.” 

“We shall have to unlock and scour that City one 
of these months,” said Gerard de Montignac, little 
thinking that it was he upon whom, in after years, the 
duty would fall, or what strange and tragic revela¬ 
tions would be made to him upon that day. 

“When they saw that we were soldiers they let us 
pass with a few curses, that is, all of them except one, 
a young fellow in a ragged djellaba, armed with a great 
pole. “What are you doing in our country, you dog 
of a Christian?” he screamed at me in a fury, and he 
twirled his staff suddenly about his head. He was so 
near to me that he could have broken my back with it 
before I could have raised a hand to defend myself. 
I had just time to understand my danger and then he 
grounded his staff and laughed at me. His friends 
grinned, too. I expect that I did look rather a fool. 
I was thoroughly frightened, I can tell you. The 
whole thing had happened so suddenly. I almost felt 
my spine snapping,” and Baumann wiped his face with 
his handkerchief at the recollection of that great staff 
whirling in the air and him helpless upon his horse 
with his holsters strapped. “So that until we had 
passed them and were back upon the track again, I 
didn’t understand.” 

“Understand what?” asked Gerard de Montignac. 

“Understand who had played this joke upon me,” 
returned Baumann. “It was Captain Ravenel.” 

Gerard de Montignac was startled. 

“You are sure?” he cried. “He was there in Mulai 
Idris, one of them!” and Baumann suddenly exclaimed : 

“Hush! Don’t turn round. There’s a man behind 


The Villa Iris 61 

you. He has been creeping along the edge of the 
verandah. This town is full of spies.” 

Gerard did not turn, but Ratenay, from where he sat, 
could see. The black figure crouching well away be¬ 
hind them on the edge of the raised floor had slipped 
quietly towards them, whilst Baumann had been tell¬ 
ing his story. He was now close behind Gerard, squat¬ 
ting low upon the plank, with his feet in the garden, 
a ragged and dusty Jew with a mass of greasy ringlets 
struggling from beneath his skull cap. 

Gerard de Montignac turned swiftly round upon 
him. 

“What do you want here ?” he cried angrily. 

“A whiskey and soda!” replied Paul Ravenel. For 
that once insular drink had become lately known with 
favour to the officers of France. 


CHAPTER VI 


The Order 

P AUL RAVENEL reported to the General and 
then betook himself to the house by the sea-wall 
in which he had spent so much of his boyhood. 
He had a month’s furlough and an account of his 
wanderings to write. At the end of a week he had 
got the stain from his skin and the dye out of his hair, 
but he had not got far with his report, not liking the 
look of the words as he wrote them down, and com¬ 
posing the page again to find it no better done than it 
had been before. He was sitting despondently at his 
writing-table at ten o’clock on one of these evenings, 
his hair all rumpled and a chaos of notes spread about 
him, when Gerard de Montignac burst into the room. 

“Paul, I am worn to a shadow with sheer idleness,” 
he cried. “Always something is going to happen, never 
anything does happen; except ships and ships and 
ships and batteries landing and soldiers marching to 
God knows where. I can bear no more of it. We 
will break out to-night, Paul. We will drink Casa¬ 
blanca in one draught. We will do something wild 
and utterly original.” 

Paul looked up and laughed. 

“For instance?” 

“Yes, it is rather difficult. To begin with, we might 
go to the Villa Iris.” 

“That bouge?” 

“And we might dance with Marguerite Lambert, the 
American ?” 


62 


The Order 


63 


Paul stared. 

“And who the devil is Marguerite Lambert?” he 
asked. Could any good thing come out of the Villa 
Iris ? 

“It is high time you knew her,” said Gerard de 
Montignac decidedly. 

“What is she like?” 

“I haven’t seen her, either. But the little Praslin 
says she’s a dream, and the little Boutreau, the little 
Boutreau of the Legion cannot sleep at night for 
thinking of her. It is high time, Paul, that we both 
made her acquaintance.” 

Paul laughed and shook his head. 

“I daren’t risk catching the little Boutreau’s malady 
until I have finished this report.” 

“You have a month.” 

“I know. But I want to go back to my battalion 
and command my company. Some day we are going 
to march to Fez. Don’t forget it!” 

Gerard de Montignac sat down, took off his cap, lit 
a cigarette and drew up his chair to the table. 

“You are a serious one,” he said very sagely, “a 
fastidious, serious one. When you look at me I feel 
that you are very sorry for me—that poor Gerard— 
and that you know I can’t help it. And when there 
are Generals about, I point to you and say loudly: ‘Ah, 
there is a serious one who will go far!’ But here 
privately I am afraid for you, Paul. I say to myself, 
‘He is not of stone. Some day things will happen 
with that serious one, and where we common people 
scrape our shins, he will break his neck. When we 
amuse ourselves for a month, he will marry the Ser¬ 
geant-Major’s daughter.’ ” 

Paul had heard this homily a good many times be- 


64 


The Winding Stair 

fore. He just went on writing as if his friend were 
not in the room. 

“But I am not sure that something has not already 
happened to you—oh, a long time ago.” 

Paul’s pen stopped abruptly, but he did not look up 
from the page. 

“Why are you not sure?” he asked. 

“Because you have compassions and sympathies and 
little delicacies of thought which the rest of us have 
not. The garrisons of the Colonial army and the 
coast towns of North Africa are not the natural soil 
for such harvests. Some long time ago, a thing has 
happened, eh?” 

“No,” said Paul. He gathered his papers together 
and got up. Gerard was beginning to guess a little 
too shrewdly. “But I will tell you what is going to 
happen. I am going with you to the Villa Iris.” 

The nine years which had passed since Paul had 
listened through an evening to Colonel Vanderfelt had 
written less upon his face than on his character. He 
hardly looked older, nor had he lost the elusive grace 
which made others warm to him from the outset of 
acquaintanceship. But he had now the ease, the rest¬ 
ful quality of a man who has found himself. Youth 
which is solitary is given to luxuriate in woe, but the 
years of companionship, of friendly rivalry, of strenu¬ 
ous effort, and a little trifle, of achievement had enabled 
Paul Ravenel to contemplate the blot upon his name 
with a much less tragic eye than when it had first 
been revealed to him. He had hurried from Colonel 
Vanderfelt’s house to France and for a week had 
roamed the woods of Fontainebleau sunk in such an 
exaggeration of shame that he shunned all speech and 
company and felt himself a leper. Paul remembered 


The Order 


65 


that week now with amazement and scorn. He had 
served throughout the Chaioui'a Campaign, from the 
capture of Settat, right on to the wonderful three 
weeks in March when with the speed and the mobility 
of Stonewall Jackson’s “ foot-cavalry” they had 
marched and fought and straightway marched again 
until the swift pounce upon the great camp of Bou 
Nuallah had put the seal upon their victories. Settat, 
M’Kown, Sidi el Mekhi, the R’Fakha, the M’Karto— 
those had been royal days of friendship and battle, 
and endurance, and the memory of the week at Fon¬ 
tainebleau could only live in shame beside them. 

Gerard de Montignac’s careless words had suddenly 
set Paul upon this train of thought, so that he forgot 
for a moment his friend’s presence in the room. He 
had not changed his plans—he found himself putting 
that question silently. No, he still meant to go back 
to his own home and race and name. He was not of 
those to whom Eastern lands and Eastern climes make 
so searching an appeal that they can never afterwards 
be happy anywhere else. He was a true child of the 
grey skies, and he meant in due time to live under 
them. But the actual date for that migration had 
been pushed off to a misty day. He put his cap on his 
head. 

“Come, let us sample your Villa Iris,” he said; and 
the two friends walked across Casablanca to the green, 
dark-shuttered house. 

The Bar was full and the piano doing its worst. 
Above the babel of voices, every harsh note of it hurt 
like a tap upon a live brain. Paul and Gerard de 
Montignac were the only two in uniform there that 
night. A few small officials of the French business 
companies, Greeks, Italians, nondescripts from the 


66 


The Winding Stair 

Levant, and Jews, who three years before, paddling 
barefoot in the filth of their Mellah, were the only 
people to shout “Vive la France,” as the troops 
marched through Casablanca—these made up the com¬ 
pany of the Villa Iris. 

Gerard de Montignac looked about the room. At a 
big table at the end, a little crowd of these revellers, 
dandies in broadcloth and yellow, buttoned boots, were 
raising a din as they drank, some standing and gestic¬ 
ulating, others perched on high stools, and all talking 
at the top of their high, shrill voices. Half-a-dozen 
women in bedraggled costumes covered with spangles 
which had once done duty in the outlying Music Halls 
of Paris were dancing with their partners in front of 
the tables. But Gerard could not believe that any one 
of them could have cost even little Boutreau of the 
Legion five minutes of his ordinary ration of sleep. 

“She may be outside,” said Gerard. “Let us see!” 

He made his way between the tables, crossed the 
open space of floor and went out through the wide 
doorway on the big verandah. Paul followed him. 
The verandah was almost empty. They sat down at 
one of the small iron tables near to the garden, and 
Gerard de Montignac broke into a laugh as he noticed 
his friend’s troubled face. 

“You cannot bear it, eh? It is all too vulgar and 
noisy and crude. You are sorry for us who are 
amused by it.” 

Paul laughed and his face cleared. 

“Don’t be an idiot, Gerard. It isn’t that.” 

“What’s the matter, then?” 

The look of perplexity returned to Ravenel’s eyes. 

“T have seen her,” he said. 

“Seen whom?” asked Gerard. 


The Order 67 

“Your Marguerite Lambert. At least, I think so. 
It must have been she.” 

There was a real note of distress in Paul’s voice 
which Gerard de Montignac was quite at a loss to 
understand. He turned in his chair and looked into 
the saloon. Between the doorway and the tables a few 
couples were revolving, but the women were of the 
type native to such places, their countenances plastered 
with paint, a fixed smile upon their lips, and a de¬ 
liberate archness in their expression, and in their fea¬ 
tures the haggard remains of what even at its bloom 
so many years ago could have been no more than a 
vulgar comeliness. 

“She is sitting at the big table with those half- 
drunken Levantines,” said Paul. “What is she doing 
amongst them?” He asked the question in a voice of 
bewilderment and pity. “Why is she here at all—a 
child!” 

Suddenly the hard uproar of the piano ceased, the 
dancers stopped their gyrations, with the abruptness of 
mechanical figures whose works have run down, and 
sauntered to their chairs. Gerard could now see the 
big table but there was such a cluster of men about it, 
gesticulating and shouting, that Gerard de Montignac 
was moved to disgust. 

“It is for those men we fight and get killed,” he 
cried, turning towards Paul. “Look at them! Three 
years ago they were cringing in their Mellahs or shiv¬ 
ering in their little shops and offices for fear of an 
attack upon the city. Now they are the bloods of the 
town, picking up the money all day, and living the 
Life at night. Another three years and half of them 
will have their automobiles and take supper at the 
Cafe de Paris, whilst you and I, Paul, if we are lucky, 


68 


The Winding Stair 

will be shaking with fever in some garrison in the 
desert. I should like to bang their noisy heads to¬ 
gether.” 

Paul laughed at his friend’s indignation. 

“All wars fatten the carrion birds, but it isn’t for 
the carrion birds that they are fought,” he said, and 
in the saloon all the voices ceased. 

Gerard de Montignac swung round again in his 
chair. The men who had been standing about the big 
table had taken their seats and on the far side of it, 
almost facing the doorway and the two officers beyond 
in the dark of the verandah, a girl was standing. 
Gerard uttered a little cry, so startled was he by her 
aspect, by the sharp contrast between her delicacy and 
the squalor of her company. He heard Paul Ravenel 
move behind him, but he did not turn. His eyes were 
drawn to that slight figure and held by it. 

“Marguerite Lambert,” he whispered to himself. 
There she stood, looking straight out through the 
doorway towards them. Could she see them, he won¬ 
dered. Why was she standing there in view before 
that crowd, in this dustbin of Casablanca? It was 
wrong. 

The piano sounded a note and Marguerite Lam¬ 
bert began to sing. But she could not sing—that was 
evident from the first bar. A' tiny voice, which even 
in that silence hardly reached to the two men on the 
verandah, clear and gentle but with no range of music 
in it. It was like a child singing and an untrained 
child without any gift for singing. As singing it was 
ridiculous. Yet Gerard de Montignac neither laughed, 
nor could withdraw his eyes. He even held his breath, 
and of her singing he was altogether unaware. 

She was pretty—yes, but too thin, and with eyes 



The Order 


69 


unnaturally large for her face. She was fresh: yes, 
strangely fresh for that place of squalor and withered 
flowers. And she was young, so that she stood apart 
from the other women like a jewel amongst pebbles. 
But it was not her beauty which arrested him, nor some 
indefinable air of good breeding which she had, but— 
and when she was halfway through her little song 
Gerard reached the explanation in his analysis— 
a queer look of fatality. Yes, a fatal look as though 
she was predestined to something out of the common, 
greater joys perhaps or greater sufferings, a bigger 
destiny than falls to the ordinary lot. 

Gerard de Montignac had all the Frenchman’s pas¬ 
sion for classing people in their proper categories, and 
his knack, as soon as that was done, of losing all inter¬ 
est in them. He was unable to place the girl in hers. 

What was she singing about in that absurd little 
tinkling voice? Moonlight, and lovers, and lilies on 
the water? To a lot of degenerate money-grubbing 
Levantines? Through Gerard’s memory, to the tune 
which she sang was running a chain of names—names 
of places—names which Commandant Marnier had 
savagely strung together one night in the Mess; the 
names of the stages in that melancholy pilgrimage 
from which women do not return. Paris, Madrid, 
Barcelona, Toulon, Marseilles, Oran, Tangiers, Casa¬ 
blanca, and the Advanced Posts of the Legion. Yes, 
but the pilgrimage occupied a lifetime. What was this 
girl’s age? Was she nineteen or twenty? Not more, 
assuredly! Plow then had she come to the penultimate 
stage so soon? By what desperate circumstance of 
crime or ill-fortune? . . . 

The song ceased and at once the clatter of voices 
broke out again. Madame Delagrange behind her bar 


70 The Winding Stair 

poured out the drinks for three or four dark-skinned 
waiters dressed like Turks and a painted woman with 
worn eyes and wrinkles which no paint could hide 
minced out in her shabby, high-heeled dancing slippers 
to the officers on the verandah. 

“Give me something to drink, dearie—I am dying 
of thirst,” she said, and she drew a chair to their table. 
Gerard de Montignac laughed brutally and would 
have driven her away, but Paul was quick to anticipate 
him. He had seen the woman flush under her paint 
when Gerard laughed. 

“Of course,” he said at once. “What shall we all 
drink, Mademoiselle?” 

She turned to him gratefully. 

“If you will take my advice, the whiskey. The 
champagne—oh, never.” 

“I can imagine it,” said Paul. “Chiefly sugar and 
sulphuric acid and mixed in the back yard,” and he 
laughed pleasantly to put the woman at her ease. 

The one sure gain which had come to Paul from the 
destruction of his illusions was a hesitation in passing 
judgment upon people and estimating their values 
and characters. He had been so utterly mistaken once. 
He meant to go gently thereafter. And partly for that 
reason, partly because of an imagination which made 
him always want to stand behind the eyes of others and 
see what different things they looked out upon, from 
the things which he saw himself, there had grown up 
within that compassion and sympathy which Gerard 
de Montignac had noticed as dangerous qualities. 

So although in truth he was more impatient than 
Gerard that this woman should be gone, he betrayed 
no sign of it. She had surely humiliations enough 


The Order 


71 


each day without his adding yet another. Accordingly 
they sat about the table, and the woman began with 
the usual gambit of her class in the only game which 
she knew how to play. 

“I have not seen you here before. You have just 
arrived in Casablanca, too—a few days ago? My 
name is Henriette. Only to think that a fortnight ago 
I was dining in the Cafe de Paris! But I wanted a 
change—so fatiguing, Paris!—and to pay my ex¬ 
penses meanwhile. So I dance here for a few weeks 
and return.” 

Paul accepted the outrageous lie with a fine courtesy 
which was lost upon his friend, who for his part 
grinned openly, remembering the Commandant Mar¬ 
nier’s descriptions. 

“And what is that little one, Marguerite Lambert, 
at her age and with her looks, doing here at the Villa 
Iris?” he asked bluntly. 

Henriette flushed and her eyes grew as hard as but¬ 
tons. “And why shouldn’t she be here?” she asked 
with a resentful challenge. “Just like the rest of us! 
Or do you think her so different as those idiots do 
over at the table there? But I will tell you one thing,” 
and she nodded her head emphatically. “She will not 
be here long—no, nor anywhere else, the little fool! 
But, there!—” Henriette’s anger died away as quickly 
as it had flared up. “She is not a bad sort and quite 
friendly with us girls.” 

“And why will she not stay here long?” asked 
Gerard. 

“Oh, ask her yourself, if you are so curious,” she 
cried impatiently. “But you are dull, you two! No, 
you are not amusing me at all,” and, emptying her 


72 


The Winding Stair 

glass, Henriette flung off into the saloon as the ac¬ 
companist began once more to belabour the keys of the 
piano. 

Gerard watched her go with a shrug of the shoulders 
and a laugh. He turned then towards Paul and Paul’s 
chair was empty. Paul had risen the moment Hen¬ 
riette had flung away and was walking at the back of 
the tables towards the doorway into the Bar. Gerard 
watched him curiously and with a certain malicious 
amusement. Was he, too—that serious one—to go at 
last the way of all flesh? To seek the conventional 
compensation for a long period of strenuous service in 
the facile amours of the coast towns? 

The beginning of the affair, at all events, was not 
conventional. Gerard noticed, with a curious envy 
which he had not thought to feel, that Paul Ravenel 
went quietly to the back of that noisy table in the Bar, 
and stood just behind Marguerite Lambert. No one at 
the table noticed him nor did Marguerite turn. But she 
rose slowly to her feet, like a person in a dream. Only 
then did the men drinking at the table look toward 
Paul Ravenel. A strange silence fell upon them, as 
Marguerite turned about and went towards Paul. For 
a moment they stood facing one another. Then Mar¬ 
guerite fell in at his side, as though an order had 
been given and they moved away from the group at 
the table, slowly, like people alone, quite alone in an 
empty world. And no word had been spoken by either 
of them to the other, nor did either of them smile; 
and their hands did not touch. But as they reached 
the open floor where a few were dancing, Marguerite 
glanced quickly, and to Gerard’s fancy, with fear, at 
the fat woman behind the Bar; and then she spoke. 
There was no doubt what she was saying. 


The Order 


73 


“We had better dance for a few moments.” 

Paul took her in his arms, and they danced. Gerard 
de Montignac rose and went out of the Villa Iris. The 
picture of the meeting between those two was still 
vivid before his eyes. It was as though an order had 
been given and both without haste or question had 
perfectly obeyed it. 


CHAPTER VII 


The Pilgrimage 

W HEN they reached the wide doorway they 
slipped out onto the balcony. It was cool 
here and quiet and there was no light except 
that which came from the Bar. They sat down at a 
table apart from the others and close to the garden. 
A waiter followed them out quickly and looked at 
Marguerite for an order. 

“May I have a citronade?” she asked of Paul, and 
he replied: 

“Let me order for you, will you? A little supper 
and some red wine. You are hungry.” 

Marguerite looked at him swiftly and dropped her 
eyes. 

“Yes, I am hungry,” she said, and a smile slowly 
trembled about her lips and then lit up her whole face. 
“I have never admitted it before.” 

The hollows of her shoulders, the unnaturally bright, 
large eyes burning in her thin face, and an air of lassi¬ 
tude she had, told a story of starvation clearly enough. 
But the visitors at the Villa Iris had not the compas¬ 
sion nor the interest to read it, and Marguerite, for her 
own reasons, had always been at pains that it should 
not be read at all. Now, however, she smiled, glad of 
Paul’s care, glad that he had seen at once with such 
keen, sure eyes one of the things which were amiss 
with her. Paul ordered some chicken and a salad. 

“But the waiter will be quick, won’t he ?” she urged. 
“Madame is not very content if we are idle.” 

74 


The Pilgrimage 


75 


Paul laughed. 

‘Til speak to her,” he said lightly. “I’ll tell her that 
she is not to worry you to-night.” 

He rose half out of his chair, meaning to buy an 
evening of rest for Marguerite Lambert from the old 
harridan behind the Bar. A bottle of champagne 
would no doubt be the price and there was no com¬ 
pulsion upon them to drink it. But he was not yet 
upon his feet when the girl reached out her hand and 
caught his sleeve. 

“No! Please!” she cried with a vehemence which 
quite startled him. “If she sends for me, I have got 
to go and you mustn’t say a word! Promise me!” 

She was in terror. Even now her eyes glanced af- 
frightedly towards the open doorway, already expect¬ 
ing the appearance of her mistress. To the enigma 
which the girl’s presence at all in the Villa Iris pro¬ 
posed to Paul Ravenel, here was another added. Why 
should she be so terrified of that red-faced, bustling 
woman behind the Bar? After all, Marguerite Lam¬ 
bert—the only delicate and fresh and young girl who 
had danced there for a living—must mean custom to 
Madame Delagrange; must be therefore a personage 
to be considered, not a mere slave to be terrified and 
driven! Why, then—? How, then—? iAnd his 
blood was hot at the mere thought of Marguerite’s 
terror and subjection. 

But he showed nothing of his anger, nothing of his 
perplexity in his face. He was at pains to reassure her. 
Let him not add to her fears and troubles. 

“I promise, Marguerite,” he said. “But let’s hope 
she doesn’t notice your absence.” 

Once more she smiled, her face a flame of tender¬ 
ness. 


76 


The Winding Stair 

“You called me by my name.” 

He repeated it, dwelling upon its syllables. 

“It’s a beautiful name,” he said. 

“Perhaps, as you speak it,” she answered with a 
laugh. “But wait till you hear how harsh a word 
Madame can make of it.” 

The waiter brought the supper and laid it on the 
table between them. 

“Eat and drink first,” said Paul Ravenel, as he 
poured the red wine into her glass. “Then we will 
talk.” 

“You shall tell me your name before I begin.” 

“Paul—Paul Ravenel,” said he, and she repeated 
the name once with her big, serious eyes fixed upon 
him and a second time with a little grimace which 
wrinkled up her nose and gave to her whole face a 
flash of gaiety. She drew her chair to the table with 
an anticipation and relish which filled Paul with pity 
and tugged sharply at the strings of his heart. She ate 
her supper with enjoyment and daintiness. 

“A cigarette?” said Paul, offering her his case as 
soon as she had finished. 

“Thank you! Oh, but I was hungry!” 

She lit it and leaning back in her chair smoked 
whilst the waiter cleared the supper away and set the 
bottle and the glasses between them on the table. 
Then Marguerite leaned forward, her face between her 
hands, her elbows on the table. 

“Paul!” she said with a smile, as if the name was a 
fruit and delightful to taste. 

“I saw you,” she continued in a low voice, “when 
you first came into the room, you and your friend. I 
thought at once that you would come for me as you 


77 


The Pilgrimage 

did. I called to you—yes, even then—oh, with all 
my strength—quietly—to myself. But I called so ear¬ 
nestly that I was afraid that I had cried my little 
prayer out loud. And then when I lost sight of you 
out here in the dark I was afraid. I didn’t see you 
come in again. I only knew suddenly that you were 
standing behind me.” 

Paul Ravenel watched her as she spoke, her great 
eyes shining, her face delicately white in that dim 
light. He had no doubt that she spoke in all frank¬ 
ness and simplicity the truth. Were they not once 
more alone, shut off by a wall of dreams from all the 
world? Paul leaned forward and took her hand. 

“I did not need to hear you call, Marguerite. I 
saw you, too, at once. My friend had heard of you, 
was looking for you. I saw you. I told him where 
you were”; and for a moment the girl’s face clouded 
over and the spell was broken. 

So far Paul Ravenel had spoken in French. Now 
he asked in English: 

“Why do they call you the American?” 

Marguerite Lambert stared at him with her eyes 
opened wide. 

“You, too?” 

“Yes. We are of the same race.” 

She looked at his uniform. 

“My mother was French, my father English. He 
took my mother’s nationality,” he said. 

Marguerite suddenly stretched both her hands across 
the table to him in a swift abandonment. 

“I am glad,” she said. “I come from Devonshire.” 

“I from Sussex.” 

“I from the county of broad moors and little val- 


78 


The Winding Stair 

leys. You from—and some look upon his face 
checked her suddenly. “I have said something that 
hurts?” she asked remorsefully. 

“No,” answered Paul, and for a few moments they 
were silent. To both of them this revelation that they 
were of the same race was no longer so much of a 
surprise as a portent. They were like travellers not 
quite sure that their feet were on their due appointed 
road, who come upon a sign post and know that they 
have made no mistake. These two had no doubt that 
they were upon their road of destiny, that this swift, 
unexpected friendship would lead them together into 
new countries where their lives would be fulfilled. 

“Just to imagine if I had never come to the Villa 
Iris!” Paul exclaimed with a gasp of fear; so near 
he had been to not coming. But Marguerite’s eyelids 
drooped over her eyes and a look of doubt and sadness 
shadowed her face. Exaltations and hopes—here 
were bright things she dared hardly look upon, for if 
she once looked and took them to her heart, and 
found them false, what was merely grievous would no 
longer be endurable. 

“It is a long way from Devonshire to Casablanca,” 
cried Paul, and Marguerite smiled. 

“There’s a question very prettily put,” said she. 

Her story was ordinary enough in its essentials. 
“Some families go up,” she said simply. “Others 
seem doomed to go right down and bring every mem¬ 
ber of them down too. Most English villages have an 
example, I think. Once and not so long ago they 
were well off and lived in their farm house. Now 
every descendant is a labourer in a cottage, except one 
or two perhaps who have emigrated and fared no 
better abroad. The Lamberts were like that.” 


79 


The Pilgrimage 

Marguerite had been born when the family were 
more than half way down the hill, although outwardly 
it still showed prosperous. Her father, a widower, 
spent more of his time upon race-courses than upon 
his farm and made it a point of pride to educate his 
children in the fashionable and expensive schools. 

‘‘He was the most happy-go-lucky man that ever 
lived,” said Marguerite. “We knew nothing of the 
debts or the mortgages. He was all for being a gen¬ 
tleman and to be a gentleman in his definition was to 
spend money. He came down to breakfast one morn¬ 
ing—there were the four of us at home, my brother, 
my two sisters and myself, and said cheerily, “Well, 
girls, all the money’s gone and the farm, too.” Then 
he ate his breakfast cheerily, went upstairs and blew 
out his brains with his shot-gun, I suppose quite cheer¬ 
ily, too.” 

The catastrophe had happened a little more than two 
years before, when Marguerite was between seventeen 
and eighteen. Misfortune scatters a family as a wind 
autumn leaves. The brother, a small replica of his 
father, departed for the Argentine, cheerily confident 
of rebuilding by an opportune speculation the Lam¬ 
bert fortune; the eldest of the sisters married an un¬ 
successful farmer in the neighbourhood with whom 
she was in love; the second became a private secretary, 
lost her job within the week, and discovered her 
proper sphere of work, as a pretty waitress in a tea- 
shop. Marguerite herself secured an engagement in 
the chorus of a Musical Comedy company which was 
touring the provinces. 

“We were just ordinary girls,” Marguerite contin¬ 
ued, “rather fecklessly brought up, fairly good-look¬ 
ing, decent manners, but nothing outstanding. There 


80 


The Winding Stair 

wasn’t any Edna May amongst us. We just did what 
we could, not very well.” Marguerite suddenly broke 
into a delicious laugh. “You heard me sing, didn’t 
you? Pathetic, wasn’t it? At least it would have 
been if I hadn’t felt the humour of it all the while. 
Well, we got stranded in Wigan—I am speaking of 
my Musical Comedy company. I pawned a few things 
and travelled to London. Three of the chorus girls 
and I clubbed together and got lodgings in Blooms¬ 
bury. But it was October when the most of the tour¬ 
ing companies had already gone out and fresh engage¬ 
ments were only probable for the Christmas panto¬ 
mime. One after another of my companions dropped 
away. Finally I was offered an opening in a concert 
party which was to tour the music halls in France. I 
was to dance between the songs.” 

“A' concert party!” said Paul. “That sounds doubt¬ 
ful.” 

Marguerite nodded. 

“I was warned against it. The White Slave traffic! 
But I had to take my risk. And as it happened there 
wasn’t any roguery of that kind. Our concert party 
was genuine. Only it didn’t attract and at Avignon 
it came to an end. There seems to me to be a curse 
on families going down hill. Misfortunes centre upon 
them. It is as though a decent world wanted to hurry 
them right down and comfortably out of sight as soon 
as possible, so that it might no longer feel the shame of 
them.” Marguerite laughed, not so much in bitter¬ 
ness as in submission to a law. “Perhaps it is simply 
that we who belong to those families don’t will hard 
enough that things should go right.” 

Paul Ravenel looked sharply at his companion. He 
had instances within his own knowledge to bear out the 


81 


The Pilgrimage 

shrewdness of her remark. His father and Colonel 
Vanderfelt! What difference was there between them, 
except that one willed hard enough to atone for a 
crime and the other did not? 

“Yes. I expect that’s the truth, if you are started 
down hill,” he said slowly. “And then what did you 
do?” 

There was a great fear in his heart as to what her 
answer might be. He was already making excuses— 
already arguing why should there be one law for the 
man and another for the woman—and rebelling against 
the argument. Marguerite did not resolve his fears in 
her account of her miserable little Odyssey; nor, on 
the other hand, did she increase them. 

“I had enough money to take me to Marseilles. . . . 
I danced at a cafe there for a little while. I was told 
that if I crossed the Mediterranean to Oran ... I 
managed to do that and I danced at Oran for a little 
while. Then I came on to Casablanca,” and she caught 
her breath and clasped her hands convulsively under 
the sting of some ever-present terror. “And I am 
afraid,” she whispered. 

“Of what?” asked Paul. 

“That I shall not stay here long, either,” she cried 
in a dreadful note of despair, with her great eyes sud¬ 
denly full of tears. “Then what shall I do?” 

Even as she spoke that question her face changed. 
Some one was coming out from the Bar through the 
doorway. A smile of convention upon her lips masked 
her misery. 

“I shall have to go now, Paul,” she said in a low 
voice, caressing his name. “I am sorry. And you will 
let me go, as you promised ?” 

“Yes,” said Paul regretfully. 


82 


The Winding Stair 

“And you will come here again, some evening, soon, 
Paul!” she whispered with a wistful little smile upon 
her lips. 

“I shall wait now.” 

The smile disappeared at once. 

“No. I must dance now. I told you Madame did 
not like to see me idle. I shall not be able to sit with 
you again this evening, and we do not close until two 
or three in the morning, if there is any one to stay. 
So to-morrow, perhaps, Paul?” 

“To-morrow, Marguerite.” 

She stood up as a man approached the table. He 
was a thick-set, stoutish man with a heavy black mous¬ 
tache and a yellowish, shiny face. He was one of 
those who had been seated at the table in the saloon 
with Marguerite when Ravenel and Gerard de Mon- 
tignac had entered the room. He came up with a 
frown upon his face and spoke surlily in French, with 
a harsh, metallic accent. 

“We wait a long time for you.” 

Marguerite Lambert made no rejoinder. “You wish 
me to dance with you,” she said. “I am very happy,” 
and with a smile of convention upon her lips she said 
good-night carelessly to Paul Ravenel. But the ap¬ 
peal and softness of her eyes took the convention out 
of her smile and the carelessness from her farewell. 

Paul, left alone at the table, watched her through 
the doorway as she danced. Her little plain pink 
frock was as neat as attention could make it, her shoes 
and stockings were spotless, her hair, brown with a 
flicker of copper, parted at the side and with a curi¬ 
ously attractive little peak in the centre of her fore¬ 
head, was waved smoothly about her small head. His 
hands had been tingling to stroke it, to feel its silk and 


83 


The Pilgrimage 

warmth rippling beneath his fingers, whilst they had 
been sitting together on the balcony. There was a 
slovenliness in the aspect of the other women. Mar¬ 
guerite was orderly as though even amidst the squalor 
of her environment she kept on respecting herself. 
She wore no ornaments at all. She was fairly tall, 
with slim legs and beautiful hands and feet. As he 
watched her Paul fell into a cold and bitter rage against 
the oily-mustachioed creature with whom she danced. 

“Gerard was right,” he said to himself. “We go 
out and fight, we get ourselves killed and mutilated, 
so that such fellows may make money and keep it up 
all night in the Bars. The Profiteers! We who are 
about to die salute you!” 

Thus he apostrophised the man who had taken Mar¬ 
guerite Lambert away from him, raging furiously. 
The old prudent Paul Ravenel counting his steps and 
avoiding emotions, had for the moment quite disap¬ 
peared. He was a boy of nineteen, ardent and unrea¬ 
sonable, and a little ridiculous in the magniloquence 
of his thoughts. The only comfort he drew was from 
an aloofness in Marguerite of which she had shown 
nothing whilst she sat with him, but which was now 
very evident. She did not speak whilst she danced, 
her eyelids were lowered, her face had lost all its ex¬ 
pression. Paul had a fancy that she had just left her 
body to revolve and glide delicately in the dance, whilst 
her spirit had withdrawn itself into some untarnished 
home of its own. The piano suddenly was dumb; the 
dancers stopped: Marguerite and her partner were 
standing face to face in front of the doorway. Paul 
had promised not to interfere. Very well then, he 
would go. He rose abruptly to his feet, his eyes fixed 
upon the couple; and at once, though Marguerite never 


84 The Winding Stair 

looked his way, she moved sharply. It was a quick 
little start, hardly perceptible. Paul felt a wave of 
joy sweep over him. She was conscious of him, as he 
was conscious of her, so that if he moved abruptly she 
at a distance was startled. He turned with a smile 
upon his lips, but after all he did not go, as he had 
intended to do. For Henriette came out of the Bar 
towards him. 

“Won’t you stay for a minute,” she said, “and give 
me something to drink! I am dying of thirst!” 

“Of course,” he said, and he called to the waiter. 
He had a great goodwill towards all women that 
night, but above all to the women of the Villa Iris. 


CHAPTER VIII 


Henriette Explains 

P AUL was rewarded out of all measure for his 
courtesy. For as Henriette sat and drank her 
whiskey and soda, she talked. 

“You were civil to me when your friend would have 
sent me contemptuously away,” she said. “And when 
I told you that I had dined at the Cafe de Paris only 
three weeks ago, and your friend laughed, you did not. 
You pretended that you believed it. That was polite 
of you. For we both knew that never once in all my 
life have I dined at the Cafe de Paris or any such swell 
restaurant in Paris. And it was kind of you. It made 
me ready to fancy that I had dined there and that 
does one a little good, eh? One feels better in one’s 
self. So I will be kind in my turn. You are inter¬ 
ested in that little one,” and she jerked her head to¬ 
wards the table in the Bar, where Marguerite had re¬ 
joined the noisy group. “Yes, she has chic, and she 
is pretty on her feet, and she has a personality, but—” 
Paul Ravenel leaned forward, his face hardening. 
“Mademoiselle, I do not want to hear.” 

“Oh, I am not going to crab her,” replied Henriette, 
and her petulant temper flamed up. “You think, I 
suppose, that women cannot admire a girl who is 
younger and prettier than themselves and cannot like 
her. That is foolish. I tell you we all like Mar¬ 
guerite Lambert. And I speak to you for your good 
and hers. But, of course, if you do not care to hear 


85 


86 


The Winding Stair 

( 

“I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle,” said Paul. “I 
will listen to you very willingly.’’ 

Henriette’s passions were no more than bubbles upon 
the surface of her good-humour. They burst very 
quickly and left no traces. The flush faded from her 
throat and forehead and no doubt from the painted 
cheeks as well, though that could not be discovered by 
mortal eye. 

“Listen,” she said. “Your friend asked me what 
Marguerite Lambert was doing at the Villa Iris, and 
I would not answer him. Why should I? It was 
clear what he meant, wasn’t it? Why was she, who 
might really have dined at the Cafe de Paris three 
weeks ago, already here at Casablanca, so near to the 
end of things?” Henriette’s face grew for a moment 
haggard with terror, as she formulated the problem. 
The last stage but one of the dreadful pilgrimage of her 
class! She herself was making that journey, and what 
lay beyond and so hideously close, loomed up when she 
thought of it, and appalled* her. 

Paul interrupted her with a word of solace. 

“You are making too much of his question.” 

But Henriette would have none of his consolation. 

“No, that is what he meant and what you meant, 
too ?” 

“I said nothing.” 

“But the question was in your face. The question 
and a great deal of trouble. Why was Marguerite 
Lambert already at Casablanca?” 

Paul did not contradict her again. She would not 
believe him if he did and he might lose the answer to 
the question. 

“You made it still more difficult to understand,” he 
said frankly. There was no good to be gained by beat- 


Henriette Explains 87 

ing about the bush with this woman who was disposed 
to help him. “For though you didn’t answer our ques¬ 
tion you added to it another perplexity. You said that 
she wouldn’t remain here long.” 

Henriette nodded. 

“That is right. The answer to both questions is the 
same. She drifted here so soon, and she will stay for 
so short a time, because she waits for the grand pas¬ 
sion. Yes, the little fool!” but it was not in scorn 
that she styled Marguerite a little fool, but with a half- 
contemptuous tenderness, and perhaps a tiny spice of 
envy. 

“The grand passion!” Paul repeated, wondering 
what in the world his companion meant. 

“Yes. Oh, she is quite frank with the rest of us. 
We talk, you know, when we are dressing, and after 
the cafe is closed, when we are changing back to our 
street clothes. Until the grand passion comes, noth¬ 
ing, nothing, nothing to any man. Look, they are 
dancing again, she and Petras Tatarnis, the Greek.” 

So he was a Greek, the man with the yellow-but¬ 
toned boots and the heavy black moustache! Henriette 
watched them with the eye of a professional. 

“Yes, she dances prettily, that little one. But would 
you like a girl to dance with you just in that way—so 
unconcerned, so half-asleep, so utterly indifferent to 
you? And if you wanted her as Petras Tetarnis does, 
furiously, wouldn’t you be mad when she swam in 
your arms so lightly, with so correct a grace and not 
one look or smile or thought for you? So that if you 
spoke to her, she had to recall her thoughts from the 
end of the world before she could answer you? You 
would be wild with rage, eh? You would want to 
take that slim little white throat between your two 


88 


The Winding Stair 

big hands and squeeze and squeeze until some atten¬ 
tion was paid to you, if it was only the attention of 
agony and fear. Am I not right?” 

Paul’s face turned white. He leaned across the 
table and cried in a low, fierce voice: 

“Was that what you meant, Henriette, when you 
said that she would not be here long? That the Greek 
would murder her ?” 

Henriette burst into a laugh. 

“Oh, no, no, no, my friend. Petras Tetarnis is not 
the man to run such perils. He has made much money, 
since the French have come to Casablanca. He is a 
prudent one. It would have to be a very dark night 
and a very empty street before Tetarnis risked his 
beautiful money and all the enjoyment he gets from 
it; and even then some one else would have to do the 
work. But he will use other ways.” 

“What kind of ways?” asked Paul. 

Henriette shrugged her shoulders. 

“He is always here. He is rich. Madame Dela- 
grange makes much of him. Very likely he has lent 
her money, and if so, he will want his interest.” 

“I see.” 

Paul leaned back in his chair and Henriette looked 
at him curiously. 

“You were much moved, my friend, when I spoke of 
the big, coarse hands gripping that little throat.” 

“Well, any man would be, and whoever the woman,” 
he protested, and Henriette smiled her disbelief. 

“Would you have been so moved if it had been my 
throat which you thought to be in danger?” she asked 
shrewdly. “No! Let us be frank. You would have 
said, Tt is Henriette’s business to look after herself. 
She is old enough, anyway’; and you would have for- 


Henriette Explains 89 

gotten me the next moment.” She turned her eyes 
again upon Marguerite Lambert. 

“The grand passion. Oh, la, la, la! Until it comes 
nothing, oh, but nothing at all for any one—not half 
a heart beat! But when it does come, everything, at 
once, with both hands. The folly!” 

“The glorious imprudence!” replied Paul. 

Henriette broke into a harsh laugh as she heard the 
softly spoken words and saw the light in Paul Rave- 
nel’s eyes. It was the light of a great relief rather 
than of hope. The fear which had plagued him all 
through this evening had gone now. There was no 
need for the excuses. He had not to argue a defence 
for Marguerite Lambert. 

“The glorious imprudence,” Henriette repeated with 
a sneer. “Yes, so you say—you, the man who has 
everything to gain from the glorious imprudence and 
when he is tired of it, can drop it in the road behind 
him. But I tell you those are not good ideas for a girl 
who dances for her living, in the cafes. There is the 
patron behind the patron like Petras Tetarnis, who 
will make trouble if he doesn’t get what he wants, for 
there are rich patrons whom the patron does not wish 
to drive away. Or there are jealousies which may 
mean fighting and the police. No, my fine gentleman! 
Girls who are difficult, the Villa Irises are no place for 
them. That is why Marguerite Lambert at twenty is 
dancing in Casablanca and will not dance there 
long.” 

“But if the great passion comes?” cried Paul. 

“Then it must come quick! Believe me, very quick. 
Petras Tetarnis is growing troublesome. And if it 
comes! Shall I tell you what will happen ? She will 
blow her brains out! Oh, you may start in your chair. 


90 


The Winding Stair 

But look at her where she sits! There is the mark of 
fate already upon her face. It is written, as they say 
in this country.” 

So to Henriette as to Gerard de Montignac and to 
Paul Ravenel, that indefinable look of destiny in Mar¬ 
guerite was evident. Paul asked himself whether it 
was not simply the outward and visible sign of that 
passionate self-respect which had kept her untarnished 
against the rush and play of the great passion when it 
came. Or was the future really written there—a his¬ 
tory of great joys perhaps and great sorrows certainly 
to be? 

“So Marguerite lives on seven francs a day and—” 

She got no further. Paul interrupted her with an 
exclamation of horror. 

“Seven francs!” 

“Yes. That is what our generous Madame Dela- 
grange pays us each night and we provide our own 
dancing kit out of it. Oh, the little fool starves. That 
is certain—all the more certain because she will not 
let any of the clients here give her food.” 

“But she let me,” cried Paul with a smile of pride. 

“Yes, she let you to-night. But the others, never, 
never, lest—you understand? Lest they should make 
a claim.” 

“Out of so small a service?” asked Paul incredu¬ 
lously. 

Henriette smiled. 

“You have been lucky in your world,” she said. 
“The clients of the Villa Iris are not so generous. 
They will make a claim out of anything, as, by the 
way, most men will, if the claim may get them what 
they want. So that little one, since she will give her¬ 
self to none of them, is wise to starve. You are the 


91 


Henriette Explains 

only one from whom she has taken food. It is curious, 
eh ? It is because of that and because you treat me 
like a human being that I, Henriette, who like the 
little fool, ramble on so seriously to you to-night/’ 

The plastered face softened into tenderness and the 
bird-like eyes shone and filled suddenly with tears. 

“It is kind of you,” said Paul. If any one had said 
to him a couple of hours before that he would have 
felt himself intensely privileged because a little danc¬ 
ing girl of the Villa Iris had taken supper from him 
and from him alone, he would have laughed his in¬ 
formant to scorn. But it was so. Paul was radiant 
with pride. He saw himself as a very fine fellow, a 
much finer fellow than he had ever believed himself 
to be. The loneliness of his boyhood, a sudden blow 
crushing his pride and his dreams in the dust, and 
years thereafter informed with a strong purpose to 
regain his name and his place in his own country, had 
combined to defer but had not slain his youth. It was 
back with him now, all the more ardent and dangerous 
from the restraint which had held it in check. Paul 
Ravenel was a boy of nineteen on this evening in the 
fire of his passion, but with the will and the experience 
of his own years; and he was old enough to hide any 
plans which he might be forming and to seek all the 
knowledge he could get from Henriette. 

“Why should she blow out her brains, as you say?” 
he asked, offering to Henriette a cigarette. 

“Because that is what she will do,” replied Hen¬ 
riette as she lighted her cigarette. “I know my world. 
Listen! My father kept a little eating-house at Rouen, 
where I saw many types of men. He went bankrupt. 
I went to dance in Paris. Oh, I was nothing out of 
the way. I danced in a quadrille at the Casino de 


92 


The Winding Stair 

Paris for a little time, then at the Bal Tabarin. I 
went to Madrid and Barcelona where I danced at the 
Lion d’Or, the restaurant which has no doors, for it 
is open night and day. And in the end I came here. 
Well, I tell you this. Fine dreams are for rich people. 
For us, if we are wise, we bury them out of sight the 
moment they are born. We will not think of them. 
We will not allow them. The rich have much which 
makes disappointment bearable. For us—we blow our 
brains out.” 

Whilst she spoke she kept darting little swift glances 
at her companion, as though she was practising on him 
some trivial diplomacy. She believed, in truth, every 
word she said. But since her philosophy was not 
Marguerite’s, if this man could give the girl a year or 
two of happiness, it would be something, at all events. 
But Paul sat and listened carelessly and answered not 
at all. 

“See!” she cried. “When you spin the racquet for 
the choice of courts at the tennis, it is ‘rough’ or 
‘smooth,’ eh? Well, it is always rough with us and 
we lose the choice.” 

She laughed at her trifle of a joke, and again her 
eyes glanced at Paul. But the clearer his purpose be¬ 
came to himself, the more impassive grew his face. 
Long ago he had learnt that lesson of defence. Hen- 
riette rose. She, at all events, was openly disap¬ 
pointed. 

“So! I have talked to you long enough,” she said. 
The piano began once more its dreadful cacophany. 
“Ah, Marguerite is dancing with another of that band. 
He does not matter. You yourself will dance with her 
again to-night, isn’t it so?” 

Paul shook his head. 


Henriette Explains 93 

“No,” and as he saw Henrietta’s face cloud over, 
he added, “she herself bade me keep away.” 

The cloud passed at once. That was good news. 
There was an understanding between them, then, al¬ 
ready. Henriette beamed. 

“I understand that,” she said in a whisper, “and I 
hope you understand it, too. Madame Delagrange is 
not very content that we dance much with the officers. 
She says they have no money.” 

Paul laughed. He would have loved to have seen 
Gerard de Montignac’s face if that remark had been 
made before him and to have heard his reply. 

“Not so much, certainly, as those gentlemen over 
there whom we have made rich. But enough, Made¬ 
moiselle Henriette, to thank a good friend.” 

For a moment Henriette was puzzled. Then she 
looked down. Beside her empty glass lay a folded 
slip of paper. The broad band of purple told her the 
amount of the bank note. She leaned forward and 
spoke in a whisper. 

“A thousand francs! It is a fortune to me! You 
understand that? I will take it, yes, with a thousand 
thanks, but it was not to get your money that I spoke 
to you.” 

“I never thought it. If I had thought it, your sur¬ 
prise would have proved me wrong.” 

Henriette gathered the note in the palm of her hand 
and making a movement as if to take her handkerchief, 
slipped it secretly into her bosom. Another thought 
came to her. 

“You are really rich then! You could make a little 
home, a little safe home, where there would be no 
clients or patrons or starving. Oh, that would be dif¬ 
ferent !” she said in a wondering voice. “I take back 


94 


The Winding Stair 

what I said about the end her grand passion would 
lead her to.” Henriette glanced again towards Mar¬ 
guerite. “She is chic, eh? She has style, the little 
one? An air of good breeding. Whence does it 
come? How is it that she has kept it?” Paul could 
have answered that question had he wished to. She 
had kept it because of her immense pride and self- 
respect, she had probably got it to keep, from the same 
source. Henriette looked from the girl dancing to 
the officer at the table. 

“A' little home, eh. If it could be!” she pleaded. 
Paul gazed at her with a smile upon his lips and in his 
eyes, but he did not answer her, and she flung away. 

“Oh, you are a box with the lid shut! Good-night, 
Monsieur!” 

“Good-night, Mademoiselle Henriette.” 

A few moments later Paul Ravenel followed Hen¬ 
riette into the Bar. He stopped before the counter 
where Madame Delagrange was vigorously wiping the 
wet rings made by the bottoms of the glasses from the 
light polished wood. She had always the duster in 
her hand, except when she was measuring out her 
drinks into the glasses, and very often then, and gen¬ 
erally was at work with it. 

“This is quite Maxim’s, Madam,” he said. 

The flattery had little effect. Madame barely paused 
in her polishing and smiled sourly. 

“In that case I must see about raising my prices, 
Monsieur,” said she. No, clearly she did not like the 
officers. Paul went on to the door. Marguerite, seated 
with the Levantines, never looked at him, but just as 
he was going out she raised her glass to her lips with 
a little nod of her head, as though she drank a health 


Henriette Explains 95 

/ 

to some absent friend, and her slow smile dawned and 
trembled on her lips. 

But the night was not yet over for Paul Ravenel. 
As he reached his house he heard his name called aloud 
and turning about saw his friend Gerard de Montignac 
hurrying towards him. 

“There is news at last,” he said. 

The town had been full of rumours for many days. 
Certain things were known. It was certain, for in¬ 
stance that the tribes of the Beni-M’Tir, the Ait-Youssi 
and the Gerouan had actually pitched their tents on 
the plain of Fez and in full revolt against Mulai Hafid 
the Sultan, were pressing the city close. It was known 
too that a flying column purposely small in order to 
set at rest the distrust of the German Press and the 
opposition of politicians in Paris, had been assembled 
at Kenitra for a swift march to relieve the capital. 
This had been delayed by bad weather which had turned 
the flat country beyond Kenitra into a marsh. 

But there had been for days a continual disembarka¬ 
tion of fresh troops at Casablanca which pointed to 
operations on a wider scale. On this night the truth 
was out. 

“Come into the house and let me hear, Gerard,” said 
Paul, and opening his door he switched on the electric 
lights and led Gerard into a room. 

“Meknes has risen too. A new Sultan, Mulai Zine, 
the brother of Mulai Hafid has been proclaimed Sultan 
there. It is no longer to be a flying column which will 
camp for a few days under the walls of Fez and return. 
It is to be a great expedition. The whole camp at Ain- 
Bourdja is ringing with it to-night. I ran down to tell 
you.” 


96 The Winding Stair 

“That was good of you, Gerard,” said Paul. 

There was a great contrast visible now between the 
two officers, the one excited and eager, the other play¬ 
ing with the switch of the standard lamp upon his 
table, and lost in thought. 

“I hear that my squadron is to go up in the first 
column under Colonel Brulard. You, of course, with 
your battalion will be wanted too.” 

“I suppose so,” replied Paul slowly. “I should have 
liked to have finished this report before I go.” 

“The report can wait,” cried Gerard, “France can’t.” 

The two friends talked late into the night. Paul 
gradually threw off the reticence with which he had at 
first answered De Montignac. They fell to debating 
the strength of the different columns, the line of march, 
whether through the forest of Zemmour or over the 
plain of the Sebou and by the Col of Segota, and who 
would command. 

“Brulard for the Advance Force,” said Gerard, “the 
General himself will follow.” 

“And Gouraud?” asked Paul. 

“Yes, yes, Gouraud. He couldn’t be left behind. It 
is said that he will have the supply column and follow 
a day or two behind Brulard.” 

“We shall know more about it to-morrow,” said 
Paul, and Gerard looked at his watch. 

“Do you know the time?” he said springing to his 
feet. “If we were in France now, we should see day¬ 
light.” He was in an emotional mood. He clapped 
his friend upon the shoulder. “We shall see one an¬ 
other again, my old one, before I start, no doubt. But 
if we don’t, and anything happens to either of us, well, 
it is good luck to the survivor.” 


Henriette Explains 97 

He shook hands with Paul and Paul let him out of 
the house. 

Paul went back to the room. The eagerness with 
which he had discussed the technical details of the ex¬ 
pedition fell from him as soon as he was alone. He 
sat down at his table and remained there until dawn 
at last did break over the town. But he was not at 
work upon his report. He had pushed it from him 
and sat with his face between the palms of his hands. 


i 


CHAPTER IX 


Marguerite Lambert 

T HE rumours of the camp were proved true the 
next morning and the preparations for pro¬ 
visioning and concentrating so large a force 
were swiftly pushed forward. Gerard de Montignac 
was to march with his squadron in a week’s time by 
Rabat and Sailer to Kenitra. Paul was to rejoin his 
battalion a few days later. Half of that battalion, 
Paul’s company included, was to form part of the 
escort of Colonel Gouraud’s huge supply column, which 
with its hundreds of camels was beginning to assem¬ 
ble at Meheydia at the mouth of the Sebou. 

Paul was now a full Captain in command of that 
company of the Tirailleurs which he had led during 
the last engagements of the Chaiouia campaign, and 
marked out by his superiors as an officer likely to reach 
the high ranks and responsibilities. He had still a few 
days of his leave and he spent the greater part of them 
in the careful revision of his report. Gerard de Mon¬ 
tignac, on his side was engaged in the supervision of 
the equipment of his squadron and was busy from 
morning until night. Two or three times during the 
course of the week, he went down between nine and 
ten at night to the Villa Iris, and sat or danced for half 
an hour with Marguerite Lambert. But he never saw 
Paul Ravenel there and through the week the two 
friends did not meet except for a moment or two in the 
thronged streets. 


98 


99 


Marguerite Lambert 

“Le grand serieux!” said Gerard, speaking of Paul 
to Marguerite Lambert with an affectionate mockery. 
‘‘He will be a General when I am an old Major dyeing 
my moustache to make myself look young. But mean¬ 
while, whilst we are both Captains, I should like to 
see more of him than I do. For, after all, we go out 
with our men—and one never knows who will come 
back/’ 

Marguerite’s face lost its colour at his words and 
she drew in her breath sharply. “Oh, it is our business 
of course,” he continued, taking her sympathy to 
himself. “Do you know, Marguerite, that for a sec¬ 
ond, I though you had stirred that thick soup in Paul’s 
veins which he calls his blood ? But no, he never comes 
here.” ~ 

Marguerite laughed hurriedly, and asked at random, 
“You have seen him to-day?” 

“Yes. He was coming out of a house close to the 
port with the agent who looks after his property, a 
little Italian. Paul was talking very earnestly and did 
not notice me. He has a good deal of property in 
Casablanca and was making his arrangements no 
doubt for a long absence.” 

Marguerite looked down at the table, tracing a pat¬ 
tern upon its surface with her finger. When she spoke 
again her voice broke upon her words and her lips 
quivered. 

“I shall lose all my friends this week,” she said. 

“Only us two,” said Gerard, consoling her. 

“That’s what I mean,” she returned with a little 
smile, and Gerard de Montignac leaned forward. 

“Marguerite, I don’t go for a couple of days,” he 
said, lowering his voice to an eager whisper. “Let us 
make the best of them! Let me have the memory of 


100 


The Winding Stair 

two good days and nights to carry away with me, will 
you ? Why not ? My work is done. I could start off 
with my troops at six o’clock to-morrow instead of at 
six o’clock on the third morning. Give me the next 
two days.” 

Marguerite shook her head. 

“No, my friend.” 

Gerard de Montignac knew nothing of that conver¬ 
sation which Henriette had held with Paul Ravenel on 
this spot a few nights before. He could but believe 
that Marguerite Lambert somehow found that dread¬ 
ful gang of nondescripts with whom she foregathered 
more to her taste than he or his friend. She shone 
like a flower in this squalid haunt, a tired and droop¬ 
ing flower. It was extraordinary that she could en¬ 
dure this company for a moment, to say nothing of 
their embraces. But women, even the most delicate 
amongst them, would blindfold their eyes and stop their 
ears, and cease to appreciate both the look of their 
friends and the esteem in which they are held, if their 
interest prompted them. Gerard de Montignac rose 
angrily from his chair. 

“Of course poor devils of officers like myself can’t 
hope to compete with these rich Dagoes,” he said 
brutally. “We must console ourselves with reflecting 
that our efforts and dangers have made them rich.” 

Marguerite Lambert flushed scarlet at the insult, and 
then lowered her head. 

“I do not wish to speak to you again,” she said in a 
distinct low voice, and Gerard de Montignac stalked 
out of the Villa Iris. 

He was troubled by his recollection of the little 
scene during the next two days; sometimes falling into 
a remorse, and sometimes repeating his own words 


101 


Marguerite Lambert 

with bravado, and arguing that this was the proper 
way to speak; and always ending with a flood of heart¬ 
felt curses. 

“Damn all Dagoes and Levantines! There ought to 
be a special code for them. They ought to be made to 
take off their shoes when they meet us in the street. 
Those old Moors knew something! I’ll never see that 
girl again as long as I live. Luckily she’ll be gone by 
the time I come back to Casablanca. Henriette said 
she wouldn’t dance at the Villa Iris for long. No, I 
w T on’t see her again.” 

He kept carefully away from the neighbourhood of 
the Villa for thirty-six hours. Then a post came in 
and was delivered throughout the camp at eight o’clock 
in the evening. Amongst the letters which Gerard de 
Montignac received was one written in English by a 
Colonel Vanderfelt in Sussex praying for news of 
Paul Ravenel. Gerard had enough English to perceive 
how much anxiety and affection had gone to the com¬ 
position of that letter. 

“It ought to be answered at once,” he said. “Paul 
must answer it.” 

Gerard looked at his watch. It was close upon nine 
now, and he was to parade at six in the morning. He 
must hand over that letter to Paul to-night. He could 
have sent it by the post very well, or he could have 
written an answer to Colonel Vanderfelt himself. But 
he took up his cap instead and walked down from Ain- 
Bourdja towards the town. Very likely he had some 
unacknowledged purpose at the back of his mind. For 
he found himself presently standing before the Villa 
Iris, though that house lay well out of the road be¬ 
tween the camp and Paul Ravenel’s house by the sea¬ 
ward wall. 


102 The Winding Stair 

“Well, since I am here,” he said, as though he had 
come to this spot quite by accident, “I may as well go 
in and make my peace with Marguerite Lambert. 
For all I know I may be quitting the world altogether 
very shortly, and why should I leave unnecessary 
enemies to hate my memory.” 

Thus he explained quite satisfactorily to himself his 
reason for entering and looking about him for Mar¬ 
guerite. But she was nowhere to be seen—no, not 
even amongst the Dagoes and the Levantines. She 
must be outside in the cool of the balcony beneath the 
roof of vines. But a glance there showed him that he 
was wrong. There was nothing for it but to ap¬ 
proach the virago behind the Bar, who hotter and red¬ 
der than ever on this night in early May, was 
polishing away at her counter and serving out the 
drinks. 

Gerard ordered one and taking it from her hand, 
said carelessly: 

“Mademoiselle Marguerite is not here to-night?” 

Madame Delagrange made a vicious dab with her 
duster and cried in an exasperation: 

“Look, Monsieur! When she is here I have nothing 
but complaints. That little Marguerite! She holds 
her nose in the air as if we smelled. She looks at us 
as if we were animals at a circus—and she has noth¬ 
ing to be conceited about with her thin shoulders and 
tired face. Now she is gone, it is all the time—‘What 
have you done with our little Marguerite?’ Well, I 
have done nothing.” She turned to another customer. 
“For you, Monsieur? A bottle of champagne? Ab¬ 
dullah shall bring it to you.” 

Abdullah in his Turkish breeches was handed the 


Marguerite Lambert 103 

dreadful decoction and Gerard de Montignac tried 
again: 

“She has left the Villa Iris altogether?” 

“Yes, yes, yes. She has gone, that Miss Ni’Touche!” 

“And where has she gone?” 

The harridan behind the Bar flung up her hands. 

“Saperlipoppette, how should I know, I ask you? 
I beg you, Monsieur, to allow me to serve my clients 
who do not think that because they have bought a 
whiskey-soda, they have become proprietors for the 
night of the Villa Iris.” 

With an indignant nod she turned to some other 
customers. Gerard wandered out into the verandah, 
where he sat down rather heavily. He was more trou¬ 
bled than he would have thought possible. After all 
the disappearance of a little dancing girl from a Bar 
in a coast town of Morocco!—what was there to make 
a fuss about in that? That is the way of little dancing 
girls. They dance and they disappear, a question or 
two from you and me and the next man are as it were 
the ripples upon the pond, and then the surface is still 
once more. 

But Gerard de Montignac could not dismiss Mar¬ 
guerite Lambert with this easy philosophy. He re¬ 
membered her too clearly, her slim grace, the promise 
of real beauty if only she had food enough, her anger 
with him two evenings ago, and above all the queer 
look of fatality set upon her like a seal. Marguerite 
Lambert gone! How and whither ? One or two 
dreadful sentences spoken a fortnight ago in the mess 
by the Commandant Marnier were written in letters 
of flame upon his memory. Casablanca was the last 
halting place but one in the ghastly pilgrimage of these 


104 


The Winding Stair 

poor creatures. The last of all—he shuddered to think 
of it. To picture Marguerite Lambert amongst its 
squalors was a sacrilege. Yet she had gone—she had 
moved on! There was the appalling fact. 

He saw Henriette strolling a little way off between 
the tables. He beckoned eagerly to her. She looked 
at him doubtfully, then with a mutinous air and a toss 
of the head she strolled towards him. 

‘‘You want to speak to me? You were not very po¬ 
lite the last time.” 

“I will atone for my discourtesy to-night, Mademoi¬ 
selle Henriette.” 

Henriette was induced to take a chair and order a 
drink. 

Gerard believed that he must practise some diplo¬ 
macy with this fiery creature if he was to get the truth 
from her, but as a fact he had not to put one question. 
For Henriette had hardly begun to sip her whiskey 
and soda before she said: 

“The little Marguerite! She has been sent away. 
I am sorry. I told you—didn’t I ?—that she wouldn’t 
stay here long.” 

“Sent away?” 

Henriette nodded. 

“By Madame?” 

“Last night?” 

“Yes. After all the guests had gone. But what a 
scene! Oh, la, la, la! I was frightened I can tell you. 
So were we all. We hid in the little room there off 
the Bar, where we dress, and listened through the 
crack of the door. But a scene! It was terrible.” 

“Tell me!” said Gerard. 

Henriette twitched her chair into the table with an 
actual excitement. She was really and deeply dis- 


Marguerite Lambert 105 

tressed for Marguerite. But for the moment her dis¬ 
tress was forgotten. The joy of the story teller had 
descended upon her. 

"It was the Greek over there, Petras Tetarnis,” she 
began. ‘‘He was mad for Marguerite and she wouldn’t 
have anything to do with him. So he got her turned 
away. See how drunk he is to-night. How proud of 
his fine revenge on a little girl who asked for nothing 
more than permission to earn her seven francs a night 
in peace.” 

“She wouldn’t have anything to say to him!” Gerard 
protested. “Why, she was always at that table where 
he sits.” 

“Yes. Because he is the real owner of the Villa 
Iris. Madame is no more than his servant. So Mar¬ 
guerite, since she wished to stay here, must be friendly 
to him. But Petras was not content with friendliness 
and last night when your friend came in—” 

“My friend,” interrupted Gerard de Montignac. 

“Yes, the one with the yellow hair and the long legs 
and the face that tells you nothing at all.” 

“Paul! He was here last night!” 

“Yes. Oh, he has come here more than once during 
the last week, but very late and for a few minutes. He 
goes straight to that table and takes Marguerite away, 
as if he were the master; and somehow they all sit 
dumb as if they were the lackeys. Imagine it, Mon¬ 
sieur! All of them very noisy and boisterous and 
then—a sudden silence and the yellow-headed Captain 
walking away with Marguerite Lambert as if they did 
not exist. It used to make the rest of us laugh, but 
they—they were furious with humiliation and when, a 
little time afterwards, the Captain had gone—oh, how 
bold they were! They would pull his nose for him the 


106 The Winding Stair 

next time, they would teach him how gentlemen behave 
—oh, yes, yes! But it was always the next time that 
these fine lessons would be given.” 

Gerard de Montignac nodded his head. 

“I know the breed.” 

Henriette described how Paul Ravenel had entered 
the Bar a little after midnight. He had taken Mar¬ 
guerite Lambert away, danced a round or two, and 
given her some supper; and whilst she ate, Petras 
Tetarnis emboldened by drink and the encouragement 
of his friends had left his table and begun to prowl 
backwards and forwards behind Paul Ravenel’s back, 
nodding and winking at his associates and muttering 
to himself. Paul had taken no notice, but Marguerite 
had stopped eating and sat in terror watching him over 
Paul’s shoulder like a bird fascinated by a snake. 
Tetarnis drew nearer and nearer with each turn, Mar¬ 
guerite sat twisting her hands and imploring Paul to 
go away and leave her. She was speaking in English 
and in a whisper so that Henriette could not repeat the 
words. But it was easy enough to translate them. “It 
is for my sake,” she was saying. “It is for my sake.” 

But Paul would not listen; and with a little help¬ 
less flutter of her frail hands Marguerite sank back in 
her chair. There would be a disturbance, very pos¬ 
sibly a fight. Once more she was to be the Helen of a 
squalid Iliad and the result would be what it always 
had been. She would move on—and this time there 
was no whither she could move. She had come to the 
end. 

“I could read the despair in her eyes, in the utter 
abandonment of her body,” said Henriette, but there 
had been much at that moment in Marguerite Lam¬ 
bert’s thoughts which Henriette could not read at all. 


107 


Marguerite Lambert 

The passionate dream of her life was dying, as she sat 
there. She had come to the end. It would have no 
chance of fulfilment now. Where to-morrrow, could 
she find the great love waiting for her? It had made 
her life possible, it had given her strength to endure 
the squalor of her lodging and her companions, and 
the loss of all that daintiness and order which mean so 
much to women. It had given her wit to defend her¬ 
self against the approaches of her courtiers, and the 
self-respect which kept her with the manners of one 
of gentlest birth. Nearer and nearer drew Petras 
Tetarnis until he bumped against Paul’s chair, and then 
very quickly and quietly Paul rose to his feet. 

A stifled prayer burst from Marguerite’s trembling 
lips. Then she covered her face with her hands and 
closed her ears with her thumbs. But there was no 
disturbance at all. 

“The Captain Paul took Petras by the elbow and 
looking down upon him talked to him as one talks to 
a child. I could hear what he said. ‘You are terrify¬ 
ing this lady. You must not behave like this in public 
places. You must go back to your place and sit very 
quietly or you must go home.’ And Petras went. 
Yes, without a word, as if he had been whipped he 
went back to his chair amongst his friends. But, I 
tell you, Monsieur, his eyes had all hell in them! And 
after a little, very cautiously, as if he was afraid lest 
the Captain Paul should notice him he crept to the 
counter and talked very earnestly with Madame.” 

“What was he saying?” asked Gerard de Montignac. 

“I could not hear at all. I dared not even try to 
listen. I went to the table where Marguerite and her 
friend were sitting. Marguerite was imploring him 
to go away. I agreed with her. The storm was over. 


108 The Winding Stair 

It was better for Marguerite’s sake that he should go 
away quietly now without any fuss.” 

“And he went?” asked Gerard. 

“Not at first,” returned Henriette. “No, he was 
stubborn. He was thinking of his pride, as men do, 
not of the poor women who suffer by it. But at last— 
it seemed that some idea came into his head, some 
thought which made him smile—he consented. He paid 
his bill and walked, neither quickly nor slowly through 
the Bar and out by the passage into the street. And 
so the people settled down, and the trouble seemed at 
an end.” 

And so until the closing of the Bar it was. As a 
rule the visitors had all gone by two o’clock in the 
morning; and this particular night was no exception. 
It was the practice as soon as the room was empty for 
Madame Delagrange to pay the girls their seven francs 
apiece at the counter. Then they crossed into the lit¬ 
tle dressing room, changed their clothes and went out 
into the lane by the street door, which was locked be¬ 
hind them. On this night, however, Madame Dela¬ 
grange kept Marguerite Lambert to the last. 

“You others can run away and get off your clothes. 
I want to have a little talk by myself with this delicate 
Miss Touch-me-not,” she said, lolling over the counter 
with a wicked leer on her coarse red face and licking 
her lips over her victim. The others were very glad 
to hurry away and leave the old harridan and Margue¬ 
rite alone in the gaudily tiled, brightly lit room. They 
kept the door of the dressing room ajar, so that they 
could both see and hear what took place. But for a 
minute or two Madame Delagrange contented herself 
with chuckling and rubbing her fat hands together and 
looking Marguerite up and down from head to foot 


109 


Marguerite Lambert 

and almost frightening the girl out of her wits. Mar¬ 
guerite stood in front of the counter looking in her 
short dancing skirt like a school girl awaiting punish¬ 
ment. 

“So this is how we repay kindnesses!” Madame De- 
lagrange began, slowly wetting her lips with her tongue. 
According to Henriette she was exactly like an ogress 
in a picture book savouring in anticipation the pretty 
morsel she meant to devour for supper. “We make 
troubles and inconveniences for the kind old fool of 
a woman who lets us sing our little songs in her Bar 
and dance with her clients and who pays us generously 
into the bargain. We won’t help her at all to keep the 
roof over her head. We treat her rich clients like mud. 
Only the beautiful officers are good enough for us! 
Bah! And we are virtuous too! Oh, he, he, he! Yes, 
but virtue isn’t bread and butter, my little one. So 
here’s an address.” She took a slip of paper from the 
shelf behind her and pushed it towards Marguerite. 
Marguerite took a step forward to the counter and 
picked up the paper. 

“What am I to do with this, Madame?” she asked 
in perplexity. 

“You are to go to that address, Mademoiselle.” 

“To-morrow?” 

“Now, little fool!” 

“Why?” 

“He is waiting for you.” 

Marguerite shrank back, her face white as paper, 
her great eyes wide with horror. 

“Who ?” she asked in a whisper. 

“Petras Tetarnis.” 

Madame Delagrange nodded her head at Marguerite 
with an indignant satisfaction. 


110 The Winding Stair 

“Off you go! We shall be a little more modest, to¬ 
morrow evening, eh? We shan’t look at everybody 
as if they would dirty our little slippers if we stepped 
on them. Come, take your seven francs and hurry 
off. Or,” and she thrust out her lips savagely, “never 
come back to the Villa Iris.” 

Marguerite stood and stared at the paper in her 
hands, 

“You can’t mean it, Madame.” 

Madame snorted contemptuously. 

“Make your choice, little one. I want to go to bed.” 

Marguerite folded the paper and with the tears run¬ 
ning down her cheeks slowly tore it across and across 
and let the fragments flutter down to the floor. Ma¬ 
dame Delagrange uttered an oath and then let loose 
upon the girl such a flood of vile abuse, that even those 
hiding behind the door of the dressing room had never 
heard the like of it. 

“Out with you,” she said, spitting upon the ground 
and sweeping the seven francs off the counter towards 
Marguerite, so that they rolled and spun and rattled 
upon the floor. “Pick up your money and get your 
rags together and march! Quick now!” 

She lolled over the counter screaming with laughter 
as Marguerite ran hither and thither seeking through 
her blinding tears for the coins, stooping and picking 
them up. “There’s another somewhere,” the old har¬ 
ridan cried, holding her fat sides. “Seek! Seek! 
Good dog! It takes ten years off my life to see the 
haughty Miss Touch-me-not running about after her 
pennies.” 

Marguerite had got to retrieve them all. In the 
dreadful penury in which she lived, a single franc had 
the importance of gold. So she ran about the room, 


Ill 


Marguerite Lambert 

searched under tables and chairs and in the corners. 
The seven francs were all her capital. They stood be¬ 
tween her and death by hunger. She must go on her 
knees and peer through the veil of her tears for the last 
of them. Even the women behind the door, hardened 
though they were, felt the humiliation of that scene in 
the marrow of their bones, felt it as something horrible 
and poignant and disturbing. As soon as Marguerite 
had picked up her money, Madame Delagrange shuf¬ 
fled out from behind her counter. 

“Now come along with me. I mean to see that you 
don’t take away what doesn’t belong to you.” 

She took the weeping girl by the elbow and pushed 
her along in front of her to the dressing room. Then 
she stood over her whilst she changed into her street 
dress and put up her dancing kit in a bundle. 

“Do you miss anything, girls?” Madame Delagrange 
asked with her heavy-handed irony and indeed with 
an evident hope that one of them would miss some¬ 
thing and the police could be sent for. But all of 
them were quick to say no, though not one of them had 
the courage to take Marguerite by the hand and wish 
her good luck in the face of the old blowsy termagant. 

“Very well then!” and Madame Delagrange took a 
step towards Marguerite who shrank back as if she 
expected a blow. Madame Delagrange laughed heartily 
at the girl’s face, rejoicing to see her so cowed and 
broken. 

“Come here,” she said with a grim sort of pleas¬ 
antry and she grinned and beckoned with her finger. 

Marguerite faltered across the room, and the big 
woman took her prisoner again and marched her out 
through the Bar onto the verandah. 

“There! You can go out by the garden and a good 


112 


The Winding Stair 

riddance to you!” Madame Delagrange banged to 
the big doors behind Marguerite Lambert and bolted 
them, leaving her with her bundle in her hand standing 
on the boards beneath the roof of vines. 

“That’s the last we saw of her. Poor kid!” said 
Henriette. “If she hadn’t been such a little fool! Do 
you know that for a moment or two I hoped that your 
friend—” 

“Paul,” Gerard de Montignac interrupted with a nod 
of his head. “I also—for a moment or two. But 
women don’t mean much to Paul.” 

Henriette laughed bitterly, wondering to what man 
women did mean anything at all. In her experience 
she had never run across them. 

“I am afraid for that little one,” she said, her 
thoughts coming back to Marguerite. “You know 
what happened? Her little bundle was found on the 
balcony this morning. The knot had broken, and her 
dancing dress, her slippers, her silk stockings were ly¬ 
ing scattered on the boards. She just left them where 
they fell. You see, they were her stock-in-trade. She 
had brought them over with her from France and she 
has no money to replace them with. I am afraid.” 

Gerard de Montignac was conscious of a chill of 
fear too. He recognised the significance of the aban¬ 
donment of that bundle. The knot had burst, as Mar¬ 
guerite stood on the verandah, the doors shut behind 
her, the dark garden in front of her. She had not 
thought it worth while to gather her poor trifles of 
finery together again. Their use was over. Whither 
had she gone? Was she alive now? Had those roar¬ 
ing breakers on the coast drawn her into their embrace 
and beaten her to death upon the rocks and the sands ? 

“Where does she lodge?” he asked sharply. 


113 


Marguerite Lambert 

“I don’t know/’ answered Henriette. “None of us 
know. She would never tell. I think that she had 
some poor little room of which she was ashamed. With 
her seven francs a day, she could have nothing else.” 

“I must find out,” cried Gerard, and then he struck 
his fist upon the table. “But I can’t find out. I march 
at six o’clock to-morrow morning for Fez.” 

“Your friend then,” Henriette suggested eagerly. 

“Paul!” replied Gerard. “Yes. He has a few days 
still in Casablanca. He has compassion, he will help. 
I know him.” 

Henriette’s face lightened a little. 

“But he must be quick, very quick,” she urged. “You 
will see him to-night?” 

“I will go to him now,” and Gerard remembered 
the letter in his pocket from Colonel Vanderfelt. “I 
was indeed on my way to him when I came here.” 

Gerard looked at his watch. It was half past ten. 
He had stayed longer than he had intended at the Villa 
Iris. 


CHAPTER X 


Colonel Vanderfelt’s Letter 


G ERARD DE MONTIGNAC found Paul still 
up and putting the last words to the report of 
long and solitary wanderings amongst the in¬ 
land tribes. The report was to be despatched the next 
morning to the Bureau des Affaires Indigenes at Rabat, 
and Gerard waited in patience until the packet was 
sealed up. Then he burst out with his story of what 
had taken place on the night before at the Villa Iris. 
Paul listened without an interruption, but his face grew 
white with anger and his eyes burned, as he heard of 
Madame Delagrange’s coarse abuse and Marguerite’s 
tears and humiliations. 

“So you see, Paul, it was your fault in a way,” 
Gerard urged. “Of course sooner or later Petras 
Tetarnis—damn his soul!—would have presented his 
ultimatum, as he did last night, but you were the occa¬ 
sion of it being done.” 

‘Yes,” Paul agreed. 

‘Then you must find her. You must do what you 
can, send her home, give her a chance. I’ll start search¬ 
ing myself this very night. But you have more time 
and better means of discovering her.” 

“Yes.” 

Paul had knocked about Casablanca as a boy. He 
had many friends amongst the natives, and was ac¬ 
customed to sit with them by the hour, drinking mint 

tea and exchanging jokes. He was a man of property 

114 




U' 


Colonel Vanderfelt’s Letter 115 


besides in that town and could put out a great many 
feelers in different quarters. 

“I have no doubt that I can discover where she is,” 
he said, “if she is still in Casablanca.” 

“Where else can she be unless it’s in the sea!” cried 
Gerard. “But remember you have got to be quick. 
She had only the seven francs. God knows what has 
become of her!” 

He stood gazing at the lamp as if he could read her 
whereabouts in that white flame as the gifted might do 
in a crystal; with his cap tilted on the back of his head 
and a look of grave trouble upon his face. 

“I’ll find her, never fear,” said Paul Ravenel, touch¬ 
ing his friend upon the arm. “And what I can do to 
keep her from harm that I will do.” 

Gerard responded to the friendliness and the assur¬ 
ance in Paul’s voice. He shook off his dejection. 

“Thank you, mon vieux,” he said and held out his 
hand. “Well, we shall meet in Fez.” 

He had reached the door before he remembered the 
primary reason for his visit. 

“By the way, I have a letter about you from some 
one in England, a Colonel Vanderfelt. Yes, he is anx¬ 
ious for news of you. He wrote to me because in 
your letters to him you had more than once spoken of 
me as your friend.” 

A shadow darkened Paul’s face as he listened, and 
a look of pain came into his eyes. He took the letter 
from Gerard. 

“Have you answered it, Gerard?” 

“No. It only reached me to-night. I must leave 
that to you.” 

“Right.” 

The door-keeper let Gerard out and he tramped 


116 


The Winding Stair 

through the now silent and empty streets the length 
of the town to the Market Gate; and so to his quarters 
in the camp at Ain-Bourdja. Some years were to pass 
before the two friends met again. 

Paul stood for a long time just as Gerard had left 
him with Colonel Vanderfelt’s letter in his hand. The 
fragrance of an English garden seemed to him to 
sweeten this Moorish room. Though the lattices were 
wide open, he heard no longer the thunder of the great 
breakers upon the shore. The letter was magical and 
carried him back on this hot night of May to a country 
of cool stars. The garden, he remembered, would be 
white with lilac, the tulips would be in flower, the rho¬ 
dodendrons masses of red and mauve, against the house 
the wisteria would be hanging in purple clusters. And 
in the drawing room some very kindly people might at 
this moment be counting the date on which they could 
expect an answer to this letter. 

Well, the answer would never come. 

“All those pleasant dreams are over, ,, thought Paul. 
“They have not heard from me for more than a year. 
Let the break be complete!” and with a rather wistful 
smile he tore the letter into shreds. Then he went out 
and turning into a street by the sea-wall came to that 
house from which Gerard de Montignac had seen him 
and his agent depart three days before. A lattice was 
open on the first floor and from a wide window a 
golden flood of light poured out upon the night. Paul 
whistled gently and then waited at the door. It was 
thrown open in a few seconds, just time enough for 
some one to run down the stairs and open it. Paul 
stepped into a dark passage and a pair of slender arms 
closed about his neck and drew his face down. 


Colonel Vanderfelt’s Letter 117 

“Marguerite, why didn’t you tell me how that 
venomous old harridan treated you ?” he whispered. 

Marguerite Lambert laughed with a note of utter 
happiness which no one had heard from her for a long 
while. 

“My dear, what did it matter any longer”; and 
clinging to him passionately, she pressed her lips to 
his. 

***** 

Paul could have added a postscript to Henriette’s 
story, as Gerard de Montignac had told it to him, if he 
had so willed. For when Marguerite Lambert stood 
alone on that verandah, her bundle in her hand, a figure 
had risen up out of the darkness of the garden and 
stepped onto the boards. She recoiled at the first mo 
ment in terror, and her bundle slipped from her hand 
and scattered its contents. 

“Marguerite,” the man whispered, and with a wild 
throb of her heart she knew it was Paul Ravenel who 
was speaking to her. 

“You! You!” she said in so low a voice that, though 
he stood at her side, the words only reached his ears 
like a sigh. “Oh!” and her arms were about his shoul¬ 
ders, her hands tightly clasped behind his head, and 
her tear-stained cheeks pressed close against the breast 
of his tunic. He tried to lift her face, but she would 
not let him. 

“No! No!” she whispered. He could feel her 
bosom rising and falling, and hear the sobs bursting 
from her throat. Then she flung up her face. 

“My dear! My dear! I was hoping that some sud¬ 
den thing would kill me, because I couldn’t do it my¬ 
self. And then—you are here!” 


118 The Winding Stair 

She drew herself from his arms, and not knowing 
what she did she kneeled and began to gather together 
her scattered belongings. Paul Ravenel laughed and 
stooping, lifted her up. 

“You won’t want those things any more, my dear,” 
and with his arm about her he led her from the gar¬ 
den through the quiet streets to this house by the sea¬ 
wall which had been got ready against her coming. 


CHAPTER XI 


A Dilemma 

I T was the sixteenth day of April in the following 
year. The dawn broke over Fez sullen and un¬ 
friendly as the mood of the city. And all through 
the morning the clouds grew heavier. Many watched 
them with anxiety through that forenoon: the French 
Mission which was to set out on the morrow, on its 
return to Rabat with the treaty of the Protectorate of 
Morocco signed and sealed in its pocket; Mulai Hafid 
himself, now for these many months Sultan, who was 
to travel with the Mission, on his way to Paris; various 
high dignitaries of state, who though outwardly 
wreathed in smiles and goodwill had prepared a little 
surprise for the Mission in one of the passes on its 
line of march to the coast; and various young officers 
of the escort who after ten months of garrison duty 
outside Fez welcomed a chance of kicking up their 
heels for a week or two in the cafes of the coast towns. 
Like conversation before dinner, all these arrange¬ 
ments depended on the weather. 

At twelve o’clock Mulai Hafid gave a farewell lunch¬ 
eon to the Mission in his great Palace in Fez-Djedid; 
and after luncheon he conducted his guests to a Pavilion 
looking upon a wide open space called Mechouar. 
They had hardly reached the Pavilion before a storm 
burst with all the violence of the tropics. The Pavilion 
was like everything else in Morocco. It had never 

been finished when it was new’, and never repaired 

119 


120 


The Winding Stair 

when it was old; and very soon, the rain breaking 
through the flimsy roof had driven the guests from 
the first floor to the chamber of audience below, and 
was splashing down the stairs in a cascade. A general 
discomfort prevailed. Mulai Hafid himself was in a 
difficult mood. To one French Commissioner of im¬ 
portance who apologized to him because a certain Gen¬ 
eral, lately promoted from Colonel, had not yet had 
time to procure the insignia of his new rank, Mulai 
Hafid replied dryly: 

“The sooner he gets them the better. He’ll want 
them all to protect him before he has done.” 

And a little later when the Head of the Mission, 
with whom he was playing chess, indiscreetly objected 
to the Sultan moving surreptitiously one of his knights 
with a latitude not authorised by the rules, he turned 
in vexation to a Kaid of his friends and said: “See 
what I have come to! I can no longer even move my 
own cavalry as I please, without the consent of his 
Excellency and the French.” 

Altogether it was an uneasy luncheon party. Alone 
Paul Ravenel was content. He was on duty with the 
Mission and all the morning his face had been as 
cloudy as the sky because the storm did not break. 
Now he stood at a window of the upper room, shelter¬ 
ing himself as best he might from the leaks of the 
roof and smiled contentedly. Lieutenant Praslin, who 
a year before had trumpeted the praises of Marguerite 
Lambert in the mess at Ain-Bourdja, stood at his el¬ 
bow. Praslin commanded now a platoon in Paul’s com¬ 
pany and held his chief in awe. But annoyance spurred 
him to familiarity. 

“You are amused, my old one, are you?” he en¬ 
quired. “We are of the escort to-morrow. We shall 


A Dilemma 


121 


swim through mud. The banks of the rivers will be as 
slippery as a skating rink. We shall have horses and 
camels tumbling about and breaking our necks. We 
shall have ladies in the party too. And you are 
amused! Name of a name, you have a sense of hu¬ 
mour, my Captain.” 

“I laugh,” replied Paul, “because if the rain contin¬ 
ues, we shan’t go at all.” 

“And you don’t want to go! To arrive safely at 
Rabat with the Mission, it might easily mean your 
step.” 

That Paul should despise the indifferent gaieties of 
Rabat and Casablanca—that was understood. He was 
the serious one, destined for the high commands. But 
here was opportunity and Paul Ravenel had been quick 
to seize upon opportunity. There had been a pretty 
little fight between Kenitra and Segota when Paul 
was in command of the Advance Guard of Colonel 
Gouraud’s convoy; and Paul had fought his little bat¬ 
tle with a resourceful skill which had brought his name 
into the orders of the day. He had been for ten 
months now in command of his Company at the great 
camp of Dar-Debibagh, four kilometres out of Fez, 
These were days of rapid promotion in an army where 
as a rule promotion was slow. A successful march to 
Rabat might well make him Commandant and give 
him his battalion. Yet the look upon his face, as he 
watched the sheets of rain turning the plain of the 
Mechouar into a marsh, was the look of a man—no, 
not relieved, but reprieved—yes, actually reprieved, 
thought the Lieutenant Praslin. 

Below them in the chamber of audience the Chiefs 
of the Mission were at this moment debating the post¬ 
ponement of the journey and they came quickly to the 


122 The Winding Stair 

only possible decision. The departure was put off for 
three days. 

“We shall go then, however,” said Praslin, when this 
decision was announced. “The escort is made up. 
There will be no change.” 

“I wonder,” Paul Ravenel replied. “In three days 
a man may learn wisdom. The Mission may after all 
wait until a sufficient force is assembled to protect it 
properly and then the whole personnel of the escort 
may be changed.” 

“Oh, those stories!” cried Praslin contemptuously. 
He had the official mind which looks upon distrust of 
official utterances as something next to sacrilege. And 
official utterances had been busy of late. There was 
no truth, they declared stoutly, in those stories that the 
Maghzen, the Government itself, was stirring up dis¬ 
affection and revolt behind the back of the Mission. 
Very likely the people of Fez were saying that the 
Sultan was the prisoner of the French, that he was 
being taken to Rabat and Paris to be exhibited tri¬ 
umphantly as a captive; but the people of Fez were 
born gossips and there was no danger in their talk. 
Had not the Grand Vizier himself pledged his word 
that the country was quiet? Thus the official mind. 
Thus too, consequently, Lieutenant Praslin, who was 
very anxious to see life as it is lived in the coast towns. 
And if the Intelligence Division and some soldiers who 
had spent years in the country took a different view, 
why, soldiers were always alarmists and foolish peo¬ 
ple and it was waste of time to listen to them. 

Paul rode back through the rain with Lieutenant 
Praslin to the camp at Dar-Debibagh when the recep¬ 
tion was over. They went by the Bab Segma and the 
bridge over the Fez River. The track was already a 


A Dilemma 


123 

batter of mud above the fetlocks of their horses. At 
seven o’clock, however, the rain ceased and Paul, 
changing into a dry uniform, went into Praslin’s tent. 

“I am dining with a friend of mine in Fez,” he said, 
“and I shall not be back until late.” 

“The battalion parade’s at six in the morning,” 
Praslin reminded him. “The order has not been 
countermanded.” 

“I know,” answered Paul. “I shall be on duty of 
course”; and mounting his horse he rode again into the 
city. 

He rode back by the way he had come and just 
within the Bab Segma he met four Moors mounted 
upon mules richly caparisoned, and themselves wear¬ 
ing robes of a spotless white. They were clearly men 
of high rank and one rode a little in advance of the 
others. As Paul drew closer to them he recognised 
this man as the Minister of War and one of the most 
important dignitaries of the Maghzen. Paul saluted 
him and to his amazement the Minister did not return 
the salute but turned to one of his companions with a 
dishonouring word. 

“Djiffa!” he said contemptuously, and spat on the 
ground. Paul took no notice of the insult. But if he 
had needed proof of the stories which the official mind 
refused to entertain, here it was openly avowed. Very 
likely the postponement of the Mission’s departure 
had upset the precious plans of the Maghzen and the 
Minister of War was showing his displeasure. The 
point of importance to Paul was that he should dare 
to show it so openly. That could but imply very com¬ 
plete plans for an ambuscade in force on the road of 
the Mission to the coast, and a very complete confi¬ 
dence as to the outcome. 


124 The Winding Stair 

Paul began to think of his own affairs. 

“Suppose that the Mission and its escort is de¬ 
stroyed,” he reflected. “I have left nothing to chance. 
No! The blow must fall as lightly as I can make pos¬ 
sible.” 

He enumerated one by one the arrangements which 
he had made and recalled the wording of his instruc¬ 
tions to his solicitors and agents. 

“No, I can think of nothing else,” he concluded. 
He had this final request for help to make to-night, and 
he was very sure that he would not make it in vain. 
“No,—whatever money can do to lighten the blow— 
that has been done. And money can do much as¬ 
suredly. Only—only”—and he admitted to himself 
at last with a little shiver, a dark thought which he had 
hitherto driven off—“she is just the kind of girl who 
might commit suttee.” 

He rode along the main street into the quarter of 
Tala. It was a street always narrow, but sometimes 
so narrow that if two mules met they could hardly 
pass. High walls of houses without any windows 
made it a chasm rather than a street. At rare inter¬ 
vals it widened into a “place” or square, where a 
drinking fountain stood or a bridge crossed a stream. 
It was paved with broken cobble stones with a great 
rut in the middle where the feet of the mules and 
horses had broken down to the brown earth beneath; 
and here and there a slippery mill-stone on which the 
horse skidded, had been let in to the cobbles by way 
of repair. It climbed steeply and steeply fell, and in 
places the line of houses was broken by a high garden 
wall above which showed orange trees laden with their 
fruit and bougainvillaea climbing. 

At times he passed under an archway where the 


A Dilemma 


125 


street was built over above his head and huge solid 
doors stood back against the walls on either hand, that 
one quarter might be shut off from another during the 
night, or in times of trouble. On his right hand a 
number of alleys led into the Souk ben Safi and the 
maze of Fez el Bali. Into one of these alleys Paul 
turned and stopped in front of a big house with an 
imposing door studded with nails, and a stone by which 
to mount a horse. 

He dismounted and knocked upon the door. To 
his surprise, it was not at once thrown open. He 
looked about him. There was no servant waiting to 
take his horse in charge. If there had been a mistake! 
Paul’s heart sank at the thought. Suppose that his 
friend Si El Hadj Arrifa, on whom so much now might 
depend, had been called away from his home? But 
that couldn’t be—surely! However peremptory the 
summons had been, so punctilious a personage as Si 
El Hadj Arrifa would have found a moment wherein 
to put off his expected guest. Yet if nevertheless it 
were so . . . ! 

Paul Ravenel felt the weighty letter under his tunic 
and gazed at the blank wall of the great house with 
troubled eyes. Oh, he must talk with his friend to¬ 
night! In three days the Mission and its escort were 
to start. He might not get another chance. He re¬ 
doubled his blows upon the door and at last he heard 
a key turn in the lock and a clatter as the wooden 
cross-bars were removed. 

That sound completed his uneasiness. He had rid¬ 
den through the city thinking of his own affairs, his 
eyes in blinkers. Now tracing his steps in memory, 
he recalled that the streets had been strangely quiet, 
strangely empty. And here at the end of his journey 


126 The Winding Stair 

was this hospitable house barricaded against an in¬ 
vited guest. 

“Oh, no,” he said, seeking to reassure himself, “the 
danger’s out there in the ‘bled,’ on the way to the 
coast, not here in the town.” 

But a picture rose before his mind of four notable 
Moors in milk-white robes mounted on mules with 
trappings of scarlet and silver who sneered openly at 
the uniform and spat. Paul Ravenel was frightened 
now. If it was not only in the “bled” that danger 
threatened, then all his careful letters and arrange¬ 
ments were worth just as much as the cobble stones 
underneath his feet. 

The door was open at last and as a servant took 
Paul’s horse by the bridle and led it away to a stable, 
Paul hurried impatiently into the house. But he was 
no more impatient than the servant who closed and 
bolted the door behind him; and in the passage he saw 
a small troop of attendants, every one of them armed 
and at the entrance from the passage into the central 
court Si El Hadj Arrifa himself with a face of fear 
and in the attitude of a man poised for flight. 

But when he caught sight of the gold lace upon 
Paul’s uniform, the Moor’s expression changed to sur¬ 
prise and surprise in its turn to a smile of welcome. Si 
El Hadj Arrifa was a stout man, fair like so many of 
the Fasi, with a fringe of beard round his fat face. He 
was dressed in a silken shirt with an overgarment of 
pink tissue under his white djellaba and his hands were 
as well-kept as a woman’s. He wore a fine white haik 
over his turban and fez. 

“I am afraid that you didn’t expect me,” said Paul. 

“Your Excellency is always welcome,” replied Si 
El Hadj Arrifa. “Our poor little meal is ready.” 


A Dilemma 


127 


But it was not ready and Paul’s uneasiness increased. 
He knew, however, that he would hear nothing until 
hospitality was satisfied of its ceremonies and then 
only by a roundabout road. He was led into a room 
opening by means of a wide archway onto the court. 
In one corner of the room stood a big modern brass 
bedstead. It was an ornament and a decoration, noth¬ 
ing more. For sleep, cushions upon the tiled floor 
were used. Round the wall there were a great number 
of clocks, Grandfather clocks, heavy Victorian clocks 
of ormolu, clocks of marble, most of them ticking away 
but registering quite different hours, and on the tiled 
floor stood two branched candlesticks of shining silver 
with the candles burning. Thick cushions were 
stretched upon the tiles about the candles and upon 
them Paul and his host took their seats. 

Si El Hadj Arrifa was a personage in Fez, a man of 
influence in politics and of great wealth. He had vis¬ 
ited Manchester more than once, to buy cotton goods 
and he talked of that town whilst they waited for 
dinner. 

“They have good dentists,” he said. 

Paul looked at this soigne and dainty gentleman in 
the fine setting of his beautiful house, and smiled to 
think of the figure he must cut in Manchester. Pie 
probably wore a black gown like a gabardine and 
elastic sided boots over white woollen socks and lived 
in a small room in a dingy street. But Si El Hadj 
Arrifa fell soon into an uneasy silence and sat listening 
with his head cocked as if he expected some sound 
from the city without to ring out over the open square 
in the roof above the court. A fountain was playing 
in the centre of the court in honour of the visitor, but 
the Moor called to a servant to turn it off, since the 


128 


The Winding Stair 

splash and tingle of the water so filled the ears that 
they could apprehend nothing else. 

Dinner was brought in at last by a couple of 
negresses and Paul must eat of each course beginning 
with sweetmeats, and ranging through a couscouss, a 
roasted leg of mutton and a stuffed chicken. Paul put 
his right hand into the dish and tore at the meat in 
the due fashion and accepted tit-bits from the fingers 
of his host. Some orange water was brought for him 
to drink, and when the long meal was over one of the 
negresses brought them a ewer and soap and poured 
water over their hands whilst they washed them. 

“Yes, they have good dentists in Manchester/’ said 
Si El Hadj Arrifa and, taking a complete set of shining 
teeth from his mouth, he washed them and polished 
them and replaced them. 

“They seem to have very good dentists there,” said 
Paul with befitting gravity. 

A silver tea kettle was brought and a silver spirit 
lamp, and Si El Hadj Arrifa brewed two little cups of 
heavily sweetened green tea and flavoured it with mint. 
But even while engaged upon this important work, he 
still kept his head cocked a little on one side, as though 
he still listened for some dreaded yet expected sound. 
And when he handed the cup to Paul, it rattled in the 
saucer. 

Nothing on this evening had so startled Paul 
Ravenel. His heart jumped within his breast. Si El 
Hadj Arrifa was not merely disturbed. His hand was 
shaking. He was desperately afraid. He drew a 
breath and leaned forward to speak and Ravenel said 
to himself with relief. “At last! It is coming.” 

But he was wrong. His host only enquired whether 
Paul had ever visited America. 


A Dilemma 


129 


“No,” he answered. 

“A man in Manchester told me that they had a way 
there of stuffing turkeys which was very good. But 
they used oysters for it and of course so far from the 
sea we can get none at Fez.” 

“Some day there will be a railway,” said Paul con¬ 
solingly. Si El Hadj Arrifa made another brew of 
tea, this time suspending in the brew a little lump of 
ambergris to flavour it. 

“I must begin,” thought Paul, as he took his cup. 
He felt for the big letter in his tunic but before he 
could take it from his breast his host spoke in a low, 
quiet tone, words which at first seemed of little more 
importance than any which had been spoken before, 
and afterwards were able to set Paul’s heart flutter- 
ing. 

“I sent a messenger this evening to you at the camp 
at Dar-Debibagh. 

“Pie missed me,” replied Paul. 

“It is a pity.” 

“Why?” 

“I sent him to warn you not to come into Fez to¬ 
night.” 

“Why?” 

“You are my friend. There is danger.” 

“But outside the city,” cried Paul, “from the tribes 
—after we have marched.” 

“Here in Fez too,” Si El Hadj Arrifa insisted in a 
voice which now frankly shook with terror. “For you 
and all of your creed that dwell in this city.” 

Paul was already on his feet, his face and his eyes 
set in a stare of horror. Si El Hadj Arrifa quite mis¬ 
understood the French officer’s manner. He said 
soothingly: 


130 


The Winding Stair 

“You shall stay in my house till it is all over.” 

“All over?” Paul repeated. He took his hand from 
the bulky letter in his tunic. If the dreadful news 
were true, his plans must change. His heart sank as 
he caught a glimpse of how they must change. 

“I must know more, my friend,” he said, and he sat 
quietly down again upon the cushions. 

“There are the Askris,” said the man of Fez, “the 
tribesmen. You have taken them too quickly into your 
armies. You have armed them too quickly. You 
have placed them with their instructors in the Kashab 
des Cherarda by the Segma gate as a garrison for this 
town. Oh, madness!” 

“Yes,” Paul agreed. “We should have waited a 
year—two years.” 

“They are told that they must carry knapsacks,” 
continued Si El Hadj Arrifa. “With us that is work 
for women, an insult to men.” 

“But it isn’t true,” said Paul Ravenel. 

“What does that matter if it is believed? The knap¬ 
sacks were carried on mules publicly through the city, 
so that all men might see them. Six thousand of 
them.” 

“Not by our orders,” said Paul, and the swift look 
and the shrug of the shoulders with which the protest 
was received told him much. It was by the order of the 
Maghzen that those knapsacks had been paraded. The 
Government itself was behind this movement in the 
city as it was behind the insurrection on the plains. 
Once more he saw very clearly the four contemptuous 
notables upon their mules. 

“Of course we have known of this trouble,” said 
Paul slowly. “But we thought that each instructor 


A Dilemma 131 

could make it clear to his men that the story was a 
lie.” 

Si El Hadj A'rrifa flung up his hands. 

“Oh, the great lessons and nothing is learnt! Was 
there not trouble once for the English in India? Was 
there not talk of cartridges greased with the fat of 
pigs? It was not true. No! But it served. As the 
knapsacks will serve in Fez.” 

“A little time,” cried Paul Ravenel, clutching at the 
straw of that faint hope. 

‘‘There is no time,” answered Si El Hadj Arrifa. 
“Listen!” He looked swiftly behind him into the 
shadows of the court to make sure that there were none 
to overhear. “The revolt in Fez was planned for to¬ 
morrow, after the Mission had departed. There was 
to be a scouring.” 

“Yes.” 

“The Askris are ready: more than ready. It was 
difficult to hold them in, even with the promise of to¬ 
morrow. Now that the departure is postponed, they 
will not wait. It needs a word perhaps, but the speak¬ 
ing of that word cannot be delayed.” 

Paul nodded gloomily. 

“And they won’t believe it,” he said in a dull quiet 
voice, as he stared upon the ground. Believe it ? Paul 
Ravenel knew very well that were he to batter down 
the door of the Embassy, they would not even allow 
him to blurt his story out. Why should he come prat¬ 
tling his soldier’s silliness at that unearthly hour ? Let 
him go back to his camp and await his well-deserved 
reprimand in the morning! There are proper channels 
by which presumptuous young officers must address 
their importunities. It is the history of many disasters. 


132 


The Winding Stair 

Politics and ambition and the play of parties must de¬ 
cide what is going to happen, not prescience or knowl¬ 
edge. Is a country notoriously studiis asperrinia bellif 
Let us never admit it, lest we range against us this or 
that faction which is strong enough to bring us down. 
It’s all a gamble. So let us plank our money and 
everybody else’s and their lives into the bargain on to 
our colour and chance it turning up. “All rising to* 
Great Place is by a winding stair.” So we must twist 
and turn and see nothing beyond the next step by which 
we mount. Authority in Fez had just been given the 
cravat of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, be¬ 
cause the negotiations for the Protectorate had been 
conducted so smoothly and had ended in so resound¬ 
ing a success. It would never do for authority to lis¬ 
ten to any intrusive soldier who insisted that murder 
and torture were knocking on the door. Had not the 
Maghzen declared that the tribesmen in the “bled” 
were only thinking of their husbandry? Did not the 
Grand Vizier himself guarantee the goodwill and 
peacefulness of Fez? 

“They have stopped their ears and bandaged their 
eyes,” said Paul. 

“But you will stay here to-night,” his friend urged. 
“No one, I think, saw you come into my house, and 
my servants are faithful. Yes, you will stay here and 
be safe until this danger is overpast!” 

Paul shook his head. 

“That I cannot do,” he said, and Si El Hadj A'rrifa 
hearing the tone he used, knew that there would be no 
persuading him. 

“Then go while you can, and ride quickly with your 
pistol loose in its holster.” 

But even so Paul did not move. 


A Dilemma 


133 


“Wait,” he said. 

He raised his head to listen. The night was still as a 
tomb. A cry even from the most distant corner of the 
city, it seemed to him, must carry to this open square 
of darkness above them. He had time. “Yes, wait,” 
he repeated, and he went apart into the shadowy patio. 
Never had he been set to face so tragic a dilemma. He 
knew Si El Hadj Arrifa too well to doubt him. Nor 
indeed had he any real doubt as to the choice which he 
himself would make. The choice was in truth made, 
had been made from the moment he was sure that tor¬ 
ture and massacre threatened those who remained in 
Fez as much as those who marched to Rabat. But he 
stood in that shadowy court of marble and tiles, gaz¬ 
ing with a great sorrow upon many lovely cherished 
things which he was now forever to forego, his own 
hopes and ambitions, a little circle of good friends, 
honour and good report, a career of active service and 
study well-applied, and at the end of it all a name 
cleansed of its stain, and—even now the picture rose 
before his mind—a dreamlike high garden fragrant 
with roses, from which one looked out over moonlit 
country to the misty barrier of the Downs. It was 
such a farewell as he had never thought to make and 
when he turned back into the room his face was twisted 
as with a physical pain and anguish lay deep in his 
brooding eyes. 

He took the envelope from his breast. 

“I shall trust you with more than my life,” he said. 

“Your Excellency has honoured me with his friend¬ 
ship. I am his servant in all things.” 

“I have been for three nights writing this letter. I 
had it in my mind to open it here and read it to you. 
But the bad news you have given me points to another 


134 The Winding Stair 

way. It may be that there will be no need to use it. 
I give it into your hands and I beg you to keep it 
sealed as it is, until you are certain of my death. If I 
am alive I shall find a means to let you know. If I 
am dead, I pray you to do all that I have written here.” 

Si El Hadj Arrifa took the letter and bowed his 
forehead upon it, as though it carried the very Sultan’s 
seal. 

“With God’s will, I will do as you direct.” 

Paul took his friend by the hand, and looked him in 
the eyes. 

“I could not rest quiet in my grave if my wishes 
written there were not fulfilled—if misfortune struck 
where there is no need that it should strike. A voice 
would call to me, in sorrow and distress, and I should 
hear it and stir in my grave though I was buried 
metres deep in clay. It is a promise?” 

“Yes.” 

Si El Hadj Arrifa struck a bell and a man came out 
to him from the servants’ quarters. 

“All is quiet, Mohammed?” 

“Up till this hour.” 

“His Excellency’s horse then! You will go in front 
of him with a lantern as far as the Bab Segma. His 
Excellency returns to the camp at Dar-Debibagh.” 

The servant’s eyes opened wide in fear. He looked 
from his master to his master’s guest, as though both 
of them had been smitten with madness. Then he went 
out upon his business, and the two men in the court 
heard the fall of the bars and the grinding of the lock 
of the door. 

“I will put this away,” said Si El Hadj Arrifa, bal¬ 
ancing the letter in his hands; and he went upstairs to 


A Dilemma 135 

his own room. When he came down Paul was stand¬ 
ing in the patio, with his cap upon his head. 

“I will bid you good-bye here my friend,” said Paul, 
but his host, terrified though he was, would not so far 
fall short of his duties. He went out with Paul Ra- 
venel to the street. The city all about them was very 
quiet. There was no light anywhere but the light in 
the big lantern which Mohammed was carrying in one 
hand whilst he held the bridle of Paul’s horse with the 
other. Paul mounted quickly and without a word. 
Si El Hadj Arrifa stood in the doorway of his house. 
He watched the lantern dwindle to a spark, he heard 
the sharp loud crack of the horse’s shoes upon the 
cobbles soften and grow dull. He waited until the 
spark had vanished, and, a little time afterwards, the 
beat of the hoofs had ceased. And still there was no 
sign of any trouble, no distant clamour as of men 
gathering, no shrill cries from the women on the roofs. 
He went back into his house. 


CHAPTER XII 


The Little Door in the Angle 

S I EL HADJ ARRIFA squatted upon his cush¬ 
ions and stared at the flames of the candles in 
his branched silver candlestick. Captain Paul 
Ravenel would be half way through the Tala now. It 
was always in that quarter of the town that turbulence 
began. He would be half way through the Tala, there¬ 
fore half way between this house and the Bab Segma 
too. And as yet there was not a cry. Si El Hadj 
Arrifa had never known a night so still. But then he 
had never listened before with such an intensity of 
fear, fear for himself, fear for that friend of his riding 
through the silent town, with the lantern swinging 
close to the ground in front of him. The sky had 
cleared after the rain and the stars were bright above 
the open square of the roof. But it was dark and once 
past the Bab Segma and clear of the town, Paul Ra¬ 
venel would slip like a swift shadow over the soft 
ground to Dar-Debibagh. He must be near the gates 
by now. Si El Hadj Arrifa pictured him now skirting 
the gardens of Bou Djeloud and very close to the gate; 
a few yards more, that was all. Si El Hadj Arrifa 
imagined him knocking upon the gate for the watch¬ 
man to open it. A sense of relief stole over the Moor. 
Mohammed would be back very soon now. Upon the 
relief followed drowsiness. Si El Hadj Arrifa’s head 
fell forward upon his breast and his body slipped into 
an easier attitude. . . . 

Yes, Paul Ravenel was undoubtedly rapping upon 

136 


The Little Door in the Angle 137 

the Segma gate, but rapping rather urgently, rather in¬ 
sistently. How those dogs of watchmen slept, to be 
sure! And Si El Hadj Arrifa woke with a start and 
very cold. It was upon his own outer door that some 
one knocked urgently and insistently. 

The Moor rose to his feet and stopped. His eyes 
had fallen upon his fine silver candlesticks and he stood 
upright and stiff in a paralysis of terror. The candles 
had burnt low. He had slept there for a long time. 
Mohammed should have been back an hour ago. The 
sound of his knocking, too, urgent, yet with all its 
urgency, discreet, spoke, like a voice of fear. Some¬ 
thing untoward then had happened. Yet the city 
still slept. Si El Hadj Arrifa was no braver than most 
of his fellow townsmen. He shivered suddenly and 
violently and little whimpers of panic broke from his 
lips. Massacres were not conducted quietly. Uproar 
and clamour waited upon them; and the strange and 
eerie silence brooding over the town daunted the soft 
luxurious Moor till his bones seemed to melt within his 
body. It was stealthy and sinister like an enemy hidden 
in the dark. He crept into the passage and listened. 
There was nothing to hear but the urgent scratching 
and rapping upon the door. 

“Is that you, Mohammed?” he asked. 

“Yes, Master.” 

Si El Hadj Arrifa unfastened the door and held it 
ajar, looking out. Mohammed was alone, and there 
was no longer a lantern in his hand. 

“Come in! And make no noise!” said Si El Hadj 
Arrifa. 

Mohammed slipped into the passage, closed the 
strong door so cautiously that not a hinge whined, 
then locked and bolted and barred it. 


138 


The Winding Stair 

“Now follow me!” 

The Moor led the way back to the room with the 
brass bedstead and sank like a man tired out on to the 
cushions. His servant stood in front of him with a 
passive mask-like face and eyes which shone bright 
with fear in the light of the candles. “Speak low!” 
said Si El Hadj Arrifa; and this is the story which 
Mohammed told in a voice hardly above a whisper. 

The French officer did not ride to the Segma Gate. 
He called in a quiet voice to Mohammed and turned 
off towards the Bab-el-Hadid on the south of the town. 

“The Bab-el-Hadid,” Si El Hadj Arrifa repeated 
in wonderment. 

“But his Excellency did not go as far as the gate. 
He stopped at the hospital and dismounted,” said Mo¬ 
hammed. 

Si El Hadj Arrifa’s face lightened. The hospital 
was the headquarters of the military command. Paul 
Ravenel had taken his story there. 

Paul had remained for a long time in the hospital. 
Two officers came out with him at length, one of whom 
was dressed in slippers and pyjamas with a dressing 
gown thrown on as if he had been wakened from his 
bed. 

“Was his Excellency smiling?” asked Si El Hadj 
Arrifa. 

“No. The other two were smiling. His Excellency 
shrugged his shoulders and mounted his horse heavily 
like a man in trouble.” 

Si El Hadj Arrifa nodded his head and muttered to 
himself. 

“They will not believe,” he said. “No, they will not 
believe.” He looked towards Mohammed. “Then he 
went out by the Bab-el-Hadid?” 


The Little Door in the Angle 139 

But Paul had not. He had turned his back to the 
Bal-el-Hadid and bade Mohammed lead to the 
Karouein quarter. 

They went for a while through silent empty streets, 
Mohammed ten paces or so ahead, holding the lantern 
so that the light shone upon the ground and Paul 
Ravenel following upon his horse. Mohammed did 
not turn round at all to see that the Captain was fol¬ 
lowing him, but the shoes of the horse clacked on the 
cobbles just behind him and echoed from wall to wall. 
They came to the first gate and it was open. The great 
doors stood back against the wall and the watchman 
was not at his post. Mohammed was frightened. An 
omission to shut off the quarters of the city one from 
the other at night could not be due to negligence. This 
was an order given by authority. However, no one 
stopped them; they saw no one; they heard no one. 

They came to a second gate. This too stood wide. 
Beyond the gate the street was built over for a long 
way making a black tunnel, and half way down the 
tunnel it turned sharply at a right angle. When this 
corner had been turned, a glimmer of twilight far 
ahead would show where the tunnel ceased. 

Mohammed passed in under the roof over the street 
and after he had walked some twenty paces forward, 
he judged that Captain Ravenel had fallen a little be¬ 
hind, the shoes of the horse no longer rang so clearly 
on the stones. He turned then, and saw horse and 
rider outlined against the dark sky, as they reached the 
tunnel’s mouth. He noticed Paul Ravenel bent for¬ 
ward over the neck of his horse to prevent his head 
from knocking against the low roof. Then he entered 
the tunnel and was at once swallowed up in the black¬ 
ness of it. 


140 The Winding Stair 

Mohammed walked forward again rather quickly. 
For he was afraid of this uncanny place, and turned 
the angle of the street without looking round again. 
He did not think at all. If he had, he would have 
understood that once the feeble flicker of his lantern 
were lost beyond the corner, Paul Ravenel would be 
left in the darkness of the blind, the mouth of the tun¬ 
nel behind him, a blank wall before his face. Moham¬ 
med was in a fever to reach the open street again and 
now that he saw it in front of him at the end of the 
passage opaquely glimmering as an uncurtained win¬ 
dow on a dark night will glimmer to one in a room, he 
pushed eagerly forward. He was close to the outlet 
when he realised that no horse’s hoofs rang on the 
cobbles behind him. 

He turned and peered back into the tunnel. There 
was nothing to be seen and there was no sound. Mo¬ 
hammed did not dare to call out. He stood wavering 
between his duty and his fear; and suddenly a tre¬ 
mendous clatter broke the silence and frightened Mo¬ 
hammed out of his wits. Mohammed had just time 
to draw back close against the wall when a horse 
dashed past him at a full gallop. A stirrup iron struck 
and tore his djellaba and the horse was gone—out of 
the tunnel up the street. But Mohammed’s eyes were 
now accustomed to the darkness. He was able to see 
against the sky that the horse was riderless. 

Something had startled the horse and the French 
Captain was thrown. He was lying on the ground 
back there, in the darkness. That was all! Thus Mo¬ 
hammed reasoned, listening. Yes, certainly that was 
all—except that it might well be that the French Cap¬ 
tain was hurt. 

Mohammed must return and find out. Quaking with 


The Little Door in the Angle 141 

alarm he retraced his steps, throwing the light of his 
lantern on one side of the passage after the other. But 
so far the passage was empty. No doubt the Captain 
would be lying on the ground beyond the angle 
where the tunnel turned. But here too he searched 
in vain. The Captain had disappeared: somewhere 
between the two outlets in this black place. He had 
gone! 

Mohammed lifted the lantern above his head, swing¬ 
ing it this way and that so that the light flickered and 
danced upon the walls. Then his arm grew steady. 
Opposite it to him in the darkest corner there was a 
little door studded with great nails—a door you never 
perceived though you passed through the tunnel ten 
times a day. Mohammed crossed to it, touched it, 
shook it. It was locked and bolted. He was debating 
whether he should knock upon it or no. But he dared 
not. This was the beginning of that Holy War which 
was to free El Mogreb from the clutch of the Chris¬ 
tians,—the stealthy beginning. To-morrow there would 
not be one of them alive in Fez, and outside Fez the 
land would be one flame of vengeance. If the French 
Captain were behind that little door he must be praying 
for a swift death! 

Mohammed drew back and suddenly the mouth of 
the tunnel was obscured and he saw the figures of two 
men. Panic had been hovering about Mohammed these 
many minutes since. It took him by the throat and 
the heart now. With a cry he dashed his lantern on 
the ground and fled leaping, past the two men. He 
was not followed. 

This is the story which Mohammed told to Si El 
Hadj Arrifa in the room with the clocks and the brass 
bedstead and the silver candelabra. 


142 


The Winding Stair 

“That is the gate by Karouein Mosque?” said the 
master, when his servant had done. 

“Yes.” 

Si El Hadj Arrifa nodded his head thoughtfully. 
He did not believe that the Captain had been captured 
or slain in this noiseless fashion. He himself had 
been bidden not to open that big envelope locked away 
upstairs until he was very certain that Paul Ravenel 
was dead. The Captain had his plans into which it 
was no business of his friend to pry. 

“As to that little door, Mohammed,” he said. “It 
will be well to forget it.” 

“It is forgotten, Master,” answered Mohammed, and 
far away but very clear and musical in the silence of 
the night the voice of a mueddin on a lofty minaret 
called the Faithful to their prayers. 


CHAPTER XIII 


The Companions of the Night 

S I EL HADJ ARRIFA' was right. When Mo¬ 
hammed saw Paul Ravenel ride forward out of 
the loom of the night into the darkness of the 
tunnel, bending his head so that it might not strike the 
roof, he missed a slight action which was much more 
significant. Paul slipped his right hand into his pocket 
and took out a heavy key. He had been seeing to it that 
Mohammed should draw gradually ahead and by the 
time when he came opposite to the little door in the 
angle, Mohammed was far beyond the turn and there 
was not the faintest glimmer of light from the lantern. 
Paul slipped from his saddle, gave his horse a sharp 
cut across the buttocks with his riding whip, and as the 
startled animal galloped off, turned quickly to the little 
door. 

He was in a darkness so complete that he could not 
see the key in his hand nor the hand that held it. Yet 
he found the keyhole at once and in another second 
he was within the house. The passage in which he 
found himself was as black as the tunnel outside. Yet 
he locked the door, picked up and fitted the stout 
transverse bars into their sockets as neatly as though 
he worked in the broad noon. He had made no sound 
at all. Yet he had shut a door between the world and 
himself, and the effort of his life now must be to keep 
it for ever closed. He had a queer fancy that a door 
thus momentously closing upon his fortunes ought to 

143 


144 The Winding Stair 

clang so loudly that the noise of it would reach across 
• the city. 

“There was once a Paul Ravenel, ,, he said to him¬ 
self. 

The lantern in Mohammed’s hands flickering upon 
the walls of the tunnel and every second dwindling a 
little more, receding a little more, danced before his 
eyes. There went the soul and spirit of that Paul 
Ravenel. 

He was aroused from his misery by the sound of 
Mohammed’s hands sliding curiously over the panels 
of the door. The cry of panic followed quickly and 
the clatter of the lantern upon the cobble stones. Paul 
waited with his pistol in his hand, wondering what 
had startled his attendant. But silence only ensued 
and he turned away from the door into the house. At 
the end of a short passage he opened a second door 
and stood on the threshold of a small court brightly lit 
and beautiful. A round pool from which a jet of 
water sprang and cooled the sultry air was in the centre 
of the white tiled floor. Wooden pillars gaily painted 
and gilded and ornamented in the Moorish fashion, not 
by carving but by little squares and cubes and slips of 
wood delicately glued on in an intricate pattern, sup¬ 
ported arches giving entrance to rooms. There was a 
cool sound of river water running along an open con¬ 
duit waist high against a wall; and poised in an arch¬ 
way across the court with her eyes eagerly fixed upon 
the passage stood Marguerite Lambert, a tender and 
happy smile upon her lips. 

When Paul Ravenel saw her, the remorse which had 
been stinging him during the ride and had reached a 
climax of pain as he stood behind the door, was stilled. 
Marguerite had changed during this year. The hoi- 


The Companions of the Night 145 

lows of her shoulders and throat had filled. The hag¬ 
gard look of apprehension had vanished from her face. 
Colour had come into her cheeks and gaiety into her 
eyes and a bright gloss upon her hair. She wore a 
fragile little white frock embroidered with silver which 
a girl might have worn at a dance in a ball room of 
London or Paris; and in the exotic setting of that 
court she seemed to him a flame of wonder and beauty. 
And she was his. He held her in his arms, the softness 
of her cheek against his. 

“Marguerite!” he said. “Each time I see you it is 
for the first time. Plow is that?” But Marguerite 
did not answer to his laugh. She held him off and 
scanned him with anxious eyes. 

“Something has happened, Paul.” 

“No.” 

“When you came in, you were troubled.” 

“When I saw you the trouble passed. I was afraid 
that you might be angry. I am very late.” 

Marguerite did not believe one word of that ex¬ 
planation, but the way to discover the true one did not 
lie through argument. She drew Paul across the court, 
holding him by the hand and saying lightly: 

“Foolish one, should I quarrel with you on the 
evening before you march away? You might never 
come back to me.” 

She led him into a side room and drew him down 
beside her on the thick, low cushions. Upstairs there 
were chairs and tables and the paraphernalia of a 
western home. Here on the level of the patio and the 
street they had for prudence’ sake kept it all of the 
country. There was no brass bedstead, it is true, to 
ornament the room, but there were three tall grand¬ 
father clocks, though only one of them was going and 


146 The Winding Stair 

that marked the true time. Marguerite laid her head 
in the hollow of his shoulder and her arm went round 
his waist. 

“Paul, you won’t get killed!” she whispered. “Oh, 
take care! take care! I am afraid. This year has been 
so perfect.” 

“You must have been lonely many days.” 

“And many nights,” whispered Marguerite, with a 
little grimace. Then she laughed with the trill of a 
bird. “But you had just gone or you were soon re¬ 
turning and my thoughts were full of you. I am not 
difficult and thorny, am I, Paul? Say so! Say so at 
once!” 

He laid her down so that her shoulders rested on his 
knee and her face smiled up at him, and bending he 
kissed her on the mouth for an answer. 

“You are the most golden thing that ever happened 
in this world,” he said. “I think of all those years 
that I lived through, before I met you, quite contented 
with myself and knowing nothing—no, absolutely noth¬ 
ing of the great miracle.” 

“What miracle, Paul ?” 

“The miracle of man and woman,—of you and me— 
who want to be together—who are hungry when we 
are not together,—who walk amongst rainbows when 
we are.” 

Paul was the “grand serieux,” as Gerard de Mon- 
tignac had called him, warning him too of that very 
fate which had befallen him. Love of this girl had 
swept him off his feet, calf-love and man’s love had 
come to him at once. Marguerite was new and en- 
trancingly strange to him as Eve to Adam. He made 
much of her judgment, as lovers will, marvelling when 


The Companions of the Night 147 

she swept to some swift, sane decision whilst he was 
debating the this and the that. She entertained him 
one moment as though he were an audience and she 
a company of players; she was the tenderest of com¬ 
panions the next: in her moments of passion she made 
him equal with the gods; and the pride and glory to 
both of them was that each had been the first to enter 
the heart and know the embraces of the other. 

“Paul, what are you thinking about?” she asked. 

“That’s the prettiest frock I have seen you in,” said 
he, and with a smile of pleasure she raised herself and 
sat at his side. 

“It’s the prettiest I have got,” she returned. 

Paul lifted a strip of the fragile skirt between his 
fingers. 

“It’s a funny thing, Marguerite,” he said. “But 
until I knew you, I never noticed at all whether a girl 
was wearing a topping frock or whether she was 
dowdy. So long as they had something over their 
shoulders, they were all pretty much the same to me.” 

“And now?” asked Marguerite. 

“Well, it’s different,” said Paul, disappointing her 
of her expected flattery. “That’s all.” 

Marguerite laughed, as she could afford to. As she 
knew very well, he loved to see her straight and slim 
in her fine clothes and it gave him an entrancing little 
sensuous thrill to feel the delicate fabrics draping ex¬ 
quisitely her firm young body. 

Paul, before he had set out with Colonel Gouraud’s 
supply column on the expedition to Fez, had sent Mar¬ 
guerite across the Straits and up to Madrid, where a 
credit was opened for her at one of the banks. Paul 
had been afraid lest she should stint herself, not only 


148 


The Winding Stair 

of luxuries but of things needed. But she had an¬ 
swered, “Of course I’ll take from you, my dear. I am 
proud to take from you.” 

She looked back upon that journey now and said: 

“I had six glorious weeks in Madrid. Fittings and 
fittings and choosing colours, and buying shoes and 
stockings and hats and all sorts of things. I began at 
half past nine every morning and was never finished 
till the shops closed. I had never had any money to 
spend before. Oh, it was an orgy!” 

“And you regret those weeks?” asked Paul, misled 
by the enjoyment with which she remembered them. 

“Nonsense. I had more fun still when I came back 
with what I had bought. I was going to make myself 
beautiful in the eyes of my lord!” and mockingly she 
pushed her elbow into his side, as she sat beside 
him. 

Marguerite, upon her return, had waited for some 
weeks in Tangier. Paul had to make sure that he was 
to be stationed at Fez. Afterwards he had to find and 
buy this house, furnish it and provide a staff of servants 
on whose fidelity he could rely. He had secured two 
negresses and an Algerian, an old soldier who had 
served with him in the Beni-Snassen campaign before 
he had ever come on service to Morocco. Even when 
all was ready at Fez there was a further delay, since 
the road from Tangier to Fez was for a time unsafe. 

“I was tired of waiting, long before Selim and the 
negress and the little escort you sent for me ap¬ 
peared,” she said. “But the journey up country I 
adored.” 

It was early in the year. The ten villages with their 
hedges of cactus; the rolling plains of turf over-scat¬ 
tered with clumps of asphodel in flower; the aspect of 


The Companions of the Night 149 

little white-walled towns tucked away high up in the 
folds of hills; the bright strong sun by day, the 
freshness of the nights, and the camp fires in that open 
and spacious country were a miracle of freedom and 
delight to this girl who had choked for so long in the 
hot and tawdry bars of the coast-towns. And every 
step brought her nearer to her lover. It was the sea¬ 
son of flowers. Great fields of marigold smiled at her. 
Yellow-striped purple iris nodded a welcome. Rosy 
thrift, and pale-blue chicory, and little congregations of 
crimson poppies, and acres of wild mustard drew her 
on through a land of colour. And here and there on 
a small knoll a solitary palm overshadowed a solitary 
white-domed tomb. 

She rode a mule and wore the dress of a Moorish 
woman. All had been done secretly, even to the pur¬ 
chase of the house in Fez, which was held in the name 
of a Moorish friend of Paul’s. It was Marguerite’s 
wish from first to last. Paul would have proclaimed 
her from the roof tops, had she but lifted an eyebrow. 
But she knew very well that it would not help Paul in 
his* career were he to bring a pretty mistress up from 
the coast and parade her openly in Fez. He would 
get a name for levity and indiscretion. Moreover, the 
secrecy was for itself delightful to her. It was to her 
like a new toy to a child. 

“I love a secret,” she had said once to Paul, when he 
urged that her life was dull. “It sets us a little fur¬ 
ther apart from others and a little nearer together. It 
will be fun keeping it up, and we shall laugh of an 
evening, locked safely away in the midst of Fez in our 
little hidden palace.” It was fun, too, for Marguerite 
to dress herself in a fine silk caftan of pink or pale 
blue reaching to her feet, to pass over the man- 


150 The Winding Stair 

souriya, to slip her bare feet into little purple em¬ 
broidered heelless slippers, to wind a bright scarf 
about her hair, to burden her ankles and arms with 
heavy clashing rings of silver, to blacken her long eye¬ 
lashes and veil the lower part of her face and go shop¬ 
ping with one of the negresses in the Souk-Ben-Saffi. 
It was fun also to return home and transform herself 
into a fashionable girl of the day and wait in this 
southern patio for the coming of her lover. 

'‘I love routine like a dog,” she said on this evening. 
She was sitting on the low cushion by Paul’s side. 
Her slim legs showing pink through the fine white silk 
of her stockings were stretched out in front of her. 
She contemplated the tips of her small white satin 
slippers. “I don’t want any more surprises,” and 
Paul’s face grew for a moment grave and twitched 
with a stab of pain. “I don’t want any more people. 
I have had enough of both. I love going up on the 
roof and watching that great upper city of women, 
and wondering what’s going on in the narrow streets 
at the bottom of the deep chasms between the houses. 
I have books, too, and work when I’m not too lazy to 
do it, and I am learning the little two-stringed guitar, 
and I want one person, one foolish dear person, and 
since I’ve got him, I’m very happy.” 

Paul reached forward and, closing a hand round one 
of her ankles, shook it tenderly. 

“Listen to me, Marguerite!” he began, but she was 
upon her feet in an instant. She snatched up Paul’s 
kepi and cocked it jauntily on her curls. 

“Canada?” she cried in a sharp, manly voice, and 
saluted, bringing her high heels together with a click 
and standing very stiff and upright. She hummed the 
tune of “The Maple Leaf,” interpolating noises meant 


The Companions of the Night 151 

to parody the instruments of an orchestra, and she 
marched in front of Paul and round the patio quickly 
and briskly like a girl in a pantomime procession, until 
she came back to her starting point. 

“Australia!” 

Again she saluted and marched round to the tune of 
“Australia will be there.” 

“The U-nited States of America!” she announced, 
and this time she skimmed round the patio in a sort 
of two-step dance, swift as a bird, her white and 
silver frock glinting and rippling as she moved. 

“Yankee Doodle went to town 
Upon a little pony,” 

she sang, and she returned to her starting point. 

“Great Britain!” she cried. 

Here she saluted for a long time while marking time 
and calling out in a gruff voice: “One, two, one, two! 
Can’t you girls keep time! Miss Montmorenci, you’ve 
a ladder in your stocking, and if you think any one is 
going to take the trouble to climb up it, you flatter 
yourself. Miss de Bourbon, you haven’t marked your 
face and it can do with a lot!” and off she went to the 
tune of the “British Grenadiers.” When she came op¬ 
posite to Paul again she held out her short skirt on 
each side, dropped a low curtsey and declared: 

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, will conclude our 
entertainment for this evening.” 

It was to conclude their entertainment for many and 
many an evening, for whilst Paul laughed and ap¬ 
plauded, from right above their heads, it seemed, a 
voice vibrant and loud and clear dropped its call to 
prayer through the open roof of the court. 

“Allah Akbar! God is above all. There is no God 
but God and Mohammed is his prophet. Rise and 


152 


The Winding Stair 

pray! Rise and do the thing that is good. There is 
no God but God!” 

It was the same voice to which Si El Hadj Arrifa 
was listening in another quarter of the city. Paul’s 
house was built in the very shadow of the Karouein 
Mosque, and the voice pealing from its high minaret in 
the silence of the night, familiar though both Mar¬ 
guerite and he were with it, never failed to startle 
them. It was a voice deep, resonant, a voice of music 
and majesty. 

“The Companions of the Sick!” said Paul, as they 
listened to it without moving, caught in the spell of its 
beauty. 

“There are ten of them,” said Marguerite. “Like 
all the rank and fashion of Fez, I set my clocks by 
their voices.” 

“Yes, ten,” Paul explained. “Ben Hayoun, a rich 
man lay very ill in this city, and night after night he 
could get no sleep. The silence became terrible to him. 
He felt an appalling sense of loneliness as the hours 
dragged by and not a sound varied them. So, when 
he recovered, he founded this order of ten Mueddins, 
each of whom must chant the summons to prayer for 
a half of one of the five hours which precede the dawn, 
so that those in pain shall be no more alone. They 
call them the companions of the sick.” 

Marguerite looked up to the open roof and the stars 
above it. 

“I often wonder what they think when they look 
down upon this bright square of light beneath them: 
whether they speculate who live here and why they 
stay up so late of nights. I fancy sometimes that the 
Mueddin is looking down and watching us as we move 
about the court.” 


The Companions of the Night 153 

She stood for a moment gazing upwards, and then 
her mood changed. 

“One o’clock/’ she cried, and running to the clock 
against the wall, she opened the glass which protected 
its face and adjusted the hands. “Paul, I’ll give you 
a whiskey and soda, and you must go.” 

She turned to him, trying to laugh gaily, but her 
voice broke. 

“You have to be on parade at six and you have miles 
to go before you reach your camp.” Her gaiety de¬ 
serted her altogether. She flung herself into his arms 
and clung to him, pressing her face against his coat. 
“Oh, my dear, when shall I see you again? I wish 
that you weren’t going. Yes, I do! Though I pre¬ 
tend to laugh and to think nothing of it when I am 
with you, I have been praying for a week with all my 
heart that something might happen to keep you* here.” 

“Something has happened,” said Paul. 

Marguerite lifted her face. 

“You are not going?” 

“No.” 

“Paul, Paul!” she cried joyfully. But there was a 
look on his face which dashed her joy. Marguerite 
was quick in those days to fall from a high buoyancy 
of spirit to forebodings and alarm. This miracle of 
her happiness was balanced on so fine a needle point 
that sometime it must drop and break into a thousand 
useless shining splinters. “Why aren’t you going?” 
she asked suspiciously. 

“Because of the rain.” Paul Ravenel explained. 
“The departure of the Mission is postponed for three 
days.” 

“Only for three days?” Marguerite repeated with a 
wistful droop of the corners of her mouth. 


154 


The Winding Stair 

“It won’t leave after three days,” said Paul. “It 
won’t leave Fez for a long while.” 

He spoke very gravely and after a moment of si¬ 
lence Marguerite disengaged herself gently from his 
embrace. A trace of the haggard look which had once 
been so familiar upon her face was visible there 
again: so visible that Paul wondered whether some 
hint of the threatened massacre had not been given to 
her by Selim or the negresses. 

“Yes, you were in great trouble when you came into 
the court to-night, and when I asked you why, you put 
me off with an excuse. The truth now, Paul, please!” 
she pleaded though she caught her breath at the 
thought of what the truth might mean to her. 

“You have courage, Marguerite.” 

The girl’s eyelids closed and fluttered over her eyes. 

“I shall need it?” 

“Yes.” 

She sank down upon the cushions, for her knees had 
given under her. Paul did not understand the real 
cause of her distress until she took his hand between 
both of hers and spoke. 

“You needn’t hesitate, my dear. Of course I have 
always lived in fear that our life together couldn’t go 
on. In my happiest moments, deep down, I have felt 
that dread. Perfection’s not allowed, is it? There’s 
a jealousy that will shatter it. I was sure of that. 
But I always hoped—not yet. I always prayed for a 
little longer time to make up for the wretched years 
before.” 

If trouble was mentioned to Marguerite Lambert in 
those days she had just the one interpretation of the 
word. It meant separation from Paul and therefore 
the ending of all things. Her passion occupied her, 


The Companions of the Night 155 

heart and brain and blood. She had waited for it, curi¬ 
ously certain that she would not be denied it. Now 
that the great gift was hers, she was in a desperate 
alarm lest she should wake one morning to discover 
that it had been filched from her in the night. Paul 
dropped down upon the cushions at her side and with 
a tender laugh drew away her hands from her face. 

“Marguerite, you are foolish. It isn’t separation, 
of course. You haven’t to fear that—no, nor ever will 
have to. Believe me, Marguerite! Look at me and 
say you believe me!” 

He turned her face towards him and held it between 
his hands and her eyes lost their trouble and smiled at 
him. 

“That’s right. Now listen, Marguerite!” 

He gave her a little shake. For since she knew that 
the one evil which she dreaded was not to befall her she 
had ceased to attend. 

“I am listening, Paul.” 

“I dined with a friend of mine to-night. I went 
there to leave him a letter of instructions about you if 
anything happened to me on our march down to the 
coast.” 

“Happened to you?” she exclaimed with a sharp in¬ 
take of her breath. 

“I expected an attack. Si El Hadj Arrifa would 
have seen that you were sent safely down to the coast. 
My agents there would have taken care of you. You 
would of course never want for anything again.” 

“I should want for everything,” said Marguerite 
slowly. “I don’t think, Paul, that I could go on living. 
. . . I was told of a girl . . . when her husband died, 
she dressed herself in her wedding gown—I couldn’t 
do that, my dear,” she interpolated with a little whimsi- 


156 The Winding Stair 

cal smile. “Then she lay down on her bed and took 
poison. ... I often think of that girl/’ 

“Marguerite, you shouldn’t. It’s morbid. You are 
young. Even if I went—” but there came a stubborn 
look upon Marguerite Lambert’s face against which he 
was well aware his finest arguments would beat in 
vain. “I’ll discuss that with you when it’s necessary,” 
he said. “To-night my friend Si El Hadj Arrifa 
warned me that not only was the Mission to be at¬ 
tacked on its way to the coast, but that there would also 
be a rising here.” 

He had Marguerite’s attention now. She looked at 
him with startled eyes. 

“In Fez?” 

“Yes.” 

“That will mean—?” 

“Yes, let us face it. A massacre.” 

Marguerite shivered and caught Paul’s hand. She 
looked about the court outside the lighted room in 
which they sat. There were shadowy corners which 
daunted her. She looked upwards, straining her ears. 
But the ceaseless chant of the Mueddin on the minaret 
of the Karouein mosque alone broke the silence of the 
night. 

“When is it to be?” she whispered, as though the 
fanatics were already gathered about her door. 

“To-night, probably. To-morrow, certainly.” 

“And you can trust your friend’s word?” 

“As I would trust yours,” said Paul. 

Marguerite drew closer to her lover and huddled 
against him. He put his arm about her. She was 
trembling. The fun of the masquerade was over. She 
wondered now how without fear she could have wan¬ 
dered with her black servant through the narrow, 


The Companions of the Night 157 

crowded markets and in those deep, maze-like streets; 
she pictured to herself the men; furtive, sleek Fasi; 
wild creatures from the hills with long muskets gleam¬ 
ing with mother-of-pearl; brawny men of the people, 
and she painted their faces with the colours and the fire 
of fury and fanaticism. This little house shut in and 
crowded about with a thousand houses! She had 
thought of it as a secret palace hidden away in the 
uncharted centre of a maze. Now it seemed to her a 
trap set in a jungle of tigers—a trap in which she and 
Paul were caught. And her thoughts suddenly took a 
turn. No, only she was in that trap. 

She listened, turning her face upwards to the open 
roof. The city was still quiet. 

“Paul, there are other Christians scattered in houses 
in the town.” 

“Yes.” 

“Couldn’t you give a warning? So that troops from 
the camp might be hurried into the town ? Leave your 
uniform here! Dress in your djellaba and your Moor¬ 
ish clothes. You can reach headquarters—” 

“I have already been there. They will not believe,” 
said Paul. 

Marguerite thought for a little while, summoning 
her strength to assist her, and the memory of the great 
debt she owed her lover. 

“Very well,” she said. “You have done all that you 
can. You must go back to the camp now, Paul, while 
you still can.” 

“No.” 

“I shall be all right, Paul. No one suspects this 
house. You have always been careful when you came 
here that the tunnel was empty. At the worst I have 
the little Belgian automatic pistol you gave me.” 


158 


The Winding Stair 

“No,” Paul repeated. 

“But your place is in the camp with your men.” 

“I have leave,” said Paul. “I applied for leave the 
moment I knew that we had three days more in Fez.” 

Marguerite did not for a moment doubt the truth of 
what he said. He spoke so simply. It was so natural 
a thing that he should ask for leave. She gave up the 
little scheme to which she had steeled her heart. Her 
arms crept about his neck. 

“There!” she whispered with a sigh of relief. “I 
have tried to send you away, haven’t I? I have done 
my best and you won’t go! I am glad, Paul, I am 
glad! Alone I should have shivered in terror.” 

“We shall be together, Marguerite.” 

Her lips trembled to a smile. Danger thus encoun¬ 
tered seemed in the anticipation hardly to be considered 
a danger at all. 

“Listen,” she said, lifting her hand. 

The voice of another mueddin now rang out across 
the city. Marguerite rose. 

“This lighted square just above our heads, Paul, is 
just beneath his feet. Let us give him no cause to 
wonder.” 

She put out the candles and returned to Paul 
Ravenel’s side. They sat together in the darkness, 
huddled against one another, whilst the companions of 
the sick followed one another upon the high minaret 
of the Karouein mosque. 

Once, twice when some stray cries broke the silence 
Paul whispered eagerly. 

“It is beginning,” and as silence followed upon the 
cries. “No! No!” he added in a dull voice, a voice of 
disappointment. 

“Paul, you wish it to begin!” said Marguerite in 


The Companions of the Night 159 

wonder, and she tried to distinguish the expression of 
his face, even though the darkness showed her nothing 
but the silhouette of his head. 

“It will be the sooner over,” said Paul quickly. 
“The revolt can’t last long in any case. There’s a 
strong column in the field just south of Meknes. A 
call from the wireless and four days will bring them 
here.” 

But there was another reason why with all his soul 
he prayed to hear the still night break up in a clatter 
of firing and fierce cries. If the revolt began to-night, 
why then he himself had been caught in it, had been 
forced to seek a refuge, had been unable to regain his 
post. Who could gainsay him? All was saved— 
Marguerite and honour too. Whereas if the morning 
came and Fez was still at peace and his appointed place 
empty—then some other man must fill it. But the 
voices on the minaret rang out in music above their 
heads, until Marguerite said: “This is the last. It is 
he who raises the flag over the mosque. In half an 
hour we shall have the dawn.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


The Tunic 


/T ARGUERITE, you must go to bed,” said 
\/| Paul. ‘Til rouse you if there’s any dan- 

^ ger.” 

It was very near to the dawn now. There was a 
freshness and an expectation in the air; a faint colour¬ 
less light was invading the darkness; in the patch of 
sky above their heads the bright stars were swooning. 
For most of this last half hour Marguerite’s head had 
lain heavy upon his shoulder, and if she opened her 
eyes it was only to close them again with a sigh of con¬ 
tent. Paul lifted her on to her feet and led her up the 
stairs. 

“And you, Paul?” she asked, drowsily. 

“I shall be within call. I shall sleep for a little on 
the cushions below. Good-night.” 

Marguerite noticed that the voice of the last mued- 
din ceased whilst she was still preparing herself for her 
bed; and after she had got into it, she heard a kettle 
singing cheerfully in the court below as if Paul were 
brewing for himself some tea. Then, with the doors 
of her bedroom open upon the little gallery above the 
court she went fast asleep. 

Hours afterwards a shattering noise awakened her. 
She lay for a few moments deliciously poised between 
sleep and consciousness, and vaguely thinking her long 
and troubled vigil to have been a nightmare which the 

light of day had happily dispelled. The sunlight was 

160 



The Tunic 161 

falling in a sheet of gold through the open roof. “It 
must be very late,” she reflected, lazily, and thereupon 
sharply and crisply two shots from a rifle split the air. 
Marguerite sprang up in her bed with a hand to her 
heart, as though one of those shots had wounded her. 
It was just the same noise which had broken through 
her slumbers. The nightmare was true, then! She 
listened, resting upon one arm, with her face turned to¬ 
wards the open doors. A clamour of voices was borne 
from a distance to her ears. The new Terror had 
begun. 

“Paul!” she cried loudly. “Paul”; and a tall man 
dressed in the robes of a Moor stood beside her bed. 
She shrank away with a little scream. It was not 
until he smiled that she recognized her lover. 

“You had better get up, Marguerite,” he said, and 
bending down he kissed her. “You have slept well, 
thank the Lord.” 

One of the negresses brought her a cup of tea and 
Marguerite, slipping on her dressing gown, sat upon 
the edge of the bed and thrust her feet into her slippers. 

“What is the time, Paul?” 

“A little past one.” 

“So late ?” 

“I let you sleep. There was no disturbance. The 
first shot waked you.” 

“I will be quick,” she said, or rather began to say. 
For the words, half-uttered, were frozen upon her lips. 
Such a din, so shrill, so menacing and strange, burst 
out above their heads that Marguerite cowered down 
under it as under the threat of a blow. She had never 
heard the like of it, she hoped never to hear the like of 
it again; yet she was to hear it now for days—the 
swift repetition of one strident note, swelling and fall- 


162 The Winding Stair 

ing in a paean of wild inhuman triumph. Marguerite 
imagined all the birds of prey in the world wheeling 
and screaming above the city; or a thousand thin voices 
shrieking in a madhouse; you—you—you—you—you 
—the piercing clamour ran swift as the clacking of a 
mitrailleuse, and with a horrid ferocity which made 
the girl’s blood run cold. 

“Paul,” she said, “what is it?” 

“The women on the roofs.” 

“Oh!” 

Marguerite shuddered as she listened, clutching 
tight her lover’s arm. Such a promise of cruelty was 
in those shrill cries as made Marguerite think of the 
little automatic pistol in the drawer of her table as a 
talisman which she must henceforth carry close to her 
hand. She felt that even if she escaped from the peril 
of these days, she could never walk again in the narrow 
streets between the blind houses without the chill of 
a great fear. Her clasp tightened upon her lover’s 
arm and he winced sharply. Marguerite looked up into 
his face, and saw that his lips were pressed close to¬ 
gether to prevent a cry of pain. 

“Paul!” she said wonderingly. She loosened her 
clasp and turned back the sleeve of his djellaba. Be¬ 
neath it, his forearm was roughly but tightly ban¬ 
daged. “Oh, my dear,” she cried, in a voice of com¬ 
punction, “what happened to you whilst I slept? You 
are wounded—and for me! Must I always do you 
harm?” and she beat her hands together in her distress. 

“It was an accident,” said Paul. 

“An accident?” 

She ran to her medicine chest, and making him sit 
beside her, unfastened the bandage. “An accident?” 
she repeated. It looked to her as if he had been stabbed. 


The Tunic 


163 


A knife had been driven right through the flesh of his 
forearm. Paul did not reply to her exclamations and 
she did not press her questions. She washed and 
dressed the wound and bound it up again. 

“It must hurt terribly,” she said, her forehead 
knitted in distress. 

“It is easier now,” he answered. “The knife was 
clean.” 

“You are sure of that, Paul?” 

“Quite.” 

She made a sling of his arm and sent him away. 
She dressed quickly, wondering how that wound had 
been inflicted and why he wished not to explain it. 
Surely he had not gone out whilst she slept? Surely 
there had been no attack upon the house? No! But 
she was plunged now into a world of mystery and 
fear, and she wrung her hands in an impotent de¬ 
spair. 

They took their breakfast in a room upon the first 
floor, Paul asking questions as to how far the house 
was provisioned, and Marguerite answering almost at 
random, whilst the cries of the women rang shrill over¬ 
head. 

“Oh, yes, there is food,” she answered. 

“We can always send Selim out,” he added. 

Marguerite’s eyes lightened. 

“We will send him out, Paul,” she exclaimed. “Do 
you know what has been troubling me? We haven’t 
a window upon any street. We are here at the bottom 
of a well with nothing but our ears to warn us of 
danger. We can see nothing.” 

Paul looked at her anxiously. She was nervous, 
the flufter of her hands feverish, and her voice running 
up and down the scale as though she had no control 


164 


The Winding Stair 

over it. Paul reached across the table and laid his 
hand upon her arm. 

“You poor little girl!” he said gently. “These are 
trying days. But there won’t be many. The wireless 
here will have got into touch already with Moinier’s 
column near Meknes. The troops, too, at Dar-Debi- 
bagh may do something,” and ever so slightly his voice 
faltered when he spoke of the troops, yet not so slightly 
but that Marguerite noticed it. “They have some 
guns,” he went on hurriedly, and again Marguerite no¬ 
ticed the hurry, the desire to cover up and hide that 
little spasm of pain which had stabbed him when he 
thought of his men. “Yes, the guns!” he said. “There 
will be an end to that infernal twittering on the roof 
tops when the guns begin to talk.” 

“Paul, you should have been with your men,” said 
Marguerite, and he answered her with a kind of vio¬ 
lent obstinacy which drew her eyes in one swift glance 
to his face. “I am on leave.” 

He changed his tone, however, immediately. 

“We will send Selim into the town for news,” he 
said cheerfully, “and we will go up on to the roof.” 

Selim was bidden to knock twice, and, after a tiny 
interval, once more upon his return. Paul stood be¬ 
hind the door listening to make sure that the tunnel 
was empty before he opened it. Then he let him go, 
and locked and barred the door again. 

“Come,” he said to Marguerite and, picking up some 
cushions, they went upstairs to the roof. Marguerite 
had followed Paul’s example, and was dressed in Moor¬ 
ish clothes; the house was higher by a storey than any 
which adjoined it, and the roof itself was enclosed in 
a parapet waist-high. They crouched upon the cush¬ 
ions behind the wall and cautiously looked over it. 


The Tunic 


165 


A pack of clouds was threatening in the west, but 
just now the city glittered in the sunlight like a jewel, 
with its hanging gardens and high terraces, its white 
houses huddling down the hillside like a flock of sheep, 
and the bright green tiles of its mosques. Paul and 
Marguerite never tired of this aspect of the lovely 
city, shut within its old crumbling walls and musical 
with the rushing noise of its many rivers. But to-day 
they saw it as they had never seen it before. For the 
roofs were crowded with women in their coloured robes 
of gauze and bright scarves, who danced and screamed, 
and climbed from one house to another on little ladders 
in such a frenzy of excitement that the eyes were daz¬ 
zled and the ears deafened. Paul turned towards the 
north. Upon the roof of one house men were break¬ 
ing through with axes and picks, whilst others flung 
down rags and sticks which had been soaked in paraffin 
and lighted, through the holes into the rooms below. 

“I think that’s the house of the French veterinary 
surgeon,” said Paul; and from all about that house rose 
a continuous rattle of firing. 

“Look!” said Paul, and he nodded to the south. 
Here there was a gap between the houses, and Mar¬ 
guerite could see far below a tumble-down stone bridge 
built in a steep arch across a stream. As she looked, 
a wild horde of men swarmed upon the bridge, caper¬ 
ing and yelling. 

“There are soldiers amongst them,” said Mar¬ 
guerite. “I can see their rifles and their bandoliers.” 

“Yes, the Askris who have revolted,” answered Paul, 
and suddenly he covered Marguerite’s eyes with the 
palm of his hand. “Don’t look!” But Marguerite had 
already seen, and she sank down behind the parapet 
with a moan. In the midst of that wild procession 


166 


The Winding Stair 

some rifles with bayonets fixed were held aloft, and 
on one of the bayonets the trunk and the limbs of a 
man were impaled. The head was carried last of all, 
and upon a pole taller than the bayonets, a head black 
with blood, like a negro’s, on which a gold-laced kepi 
was derisively cocked. 

Paul swore underneath his breath. 

“One of my brothers,” he whispered. “Oh, my 
God,” and dropping his head into his hands, he rocked 
his body to and fro in an agony of remorse. 

Marguerite touched him on the shoulder. 

“Paul, there’s a carbine in your room.” 

“It would be fatal to use it.” 

“I don’t care,” Marguerite cried fiercely. Her face 
was alive with passion. “Use it, Paul. I don’t care!” 
and from far below there rose the sound of a loud 
knocking upon a door. 

Marguerite’s heart fluttered up into her throat. She 
stared at Paul with her eyes opened wide in horror. 
The same thought was in both their minds. Both lis¬ 
tened, holding their breath that they might hear the 
better. 

“It was upon our door they knocked,” Marguerite 
whispered, and she crept a little closer to her lover. 

“Listen!” replied Paul, and as the knocking began 
again, but this time louder, he added with a grim look 
upon his face, “Yes.” 

“And it was not Selim who knocked,” said Mar¬ 
guerite. 

They could hear cries now, angry orders to open, 
followed by a muffled clamour and such a clatter of 
heavy blows as shook the very house. 

“I must go down,” said Paul, in a low voice. 
“Otherwise they’ll break in the door.” 


The Tunic 


167 

Marguerite nodded. Her face was white to the lips, 
but she was quite still now and her eyes steady. They 
crept down to the uppermost floor of the house. The 
noise was louder. 

“You will stay here, Marguerite ?” 

“Yes.” 

“You have your pistol?” 

Marguerite drew it from her broad waist-belt of 
gold brocade, snapped back the barrel, and set the 
safety catch. Her hand never shook. Now that the 
peril was at her elbow she could even smile. Paul 
took her passionately in his arms. 

“You are gold all through, Marguerite,” he cried. 
“If this is the end, I thank you a thousand times. I 
would hate to have died without knowing the wonder 
of such rare love as yours.” 

“ ‘We two embracing under death’s spread hand.’ ” 
She quoted from a book upon her shelf in which she 
was pleased to find a whole library of wisdom and 
inspiration. 

“You will wait until the last moment?” said Paul, 
touching the little automatic in her hand. 

“Until they are on this last flight of stairs,” she 
replied, in an even voice. “Paul!” She clung to him 
for a second, not in terror, but as to some inestimable 
treasure which she could hardly let go. Then she 
stood away, her eyes shining like the dew, her face 
hallowed with tenderness. “Now, my dear, go!” 

Paul Ravenel ran down the stairs. The clamour 
echoing from the tunnel had taken on a fiercer note; 
the door, stout as it was, bent inwards under the 
blows. Marguerite, standing upon the landing, heard 
him unbolt the door. She drew back out of sight as 
a crowd of men, some in djellabas spotted with blood, 


168 


The Winding Stair 

some in ragged caftans, some armed with rifles, others 
with curved knives, others, again, with sharpened 
poles, swept screaming like madmen over the court. 

“The Frenchman,” cried a great fellow, brandishing 
a butcher’s cleaver. “Give him to us! God has willed 
that they shall all die this day.” 

What had become of Paul ? she wondered. Had he 
been swept off his feet and trampled down in the rush ? 
She heard his voice above the clamour. She imagined 
him standing with uplifted hand claiming silence. At 
all events, silence followed, and then his voice rang 
out. 

“God willed that he should die yesterday,” said Paul. 

Marguerite peered out between the curtains which 
overhung the entrance to the room. She saw him 
move, calm and smiling, across the court to an alcove 
and point to a corner. 

“The Frenchman came to my house once too often. 
Look! He sought refuge here last night. He was 
not wise to seek refuge in the house of Ben-Sedira the 
Meknasi. For to-day his body rolls in the river—” 
Paul threw open a small door in the back wall and 
showed them the Ivarouein River tumbling, swollen 
with the rain, past the walls of his house. Then he 
pointed to the alcove: “A'nd his livery lies there.” 

There,was a rush into the alcove, and the shouts of 
exultation broke out again. A blue tunic, on the 
breast of which medals glinted and rattled, was tossed 
out high amidst the throng. The tunic was gashed 
and all cluttered and stained with blood which had 
dried. Paul’s gold-lace cap spun through the air, was 
caught, and clapped upon the head of a boy, his 
breeches and boots and accoutrements were flung: from 
hand to hand and shared out amidst laughter and 


The Tunic 


169 

cheering. And once more there was a surge of men, 
and the court was empty and silent. No, not quite 
empty. Paul was talking in a gentle voice to one wild 
man who was now wearing over a ragged caftan Paul’s 
uniform tunic. Paul held him firmly by the elbow, 
and was speaking in a curiously soft, smooth voice, 
than which Marguerite had never heard anything more 
menacing. 

“You will leave that tunic, good friend. You will 
take it off at once and leave it here. It is my trophy. 
Have I not earned it?” 

The man protested, and sought to disengage him¬ 
self, but Paul still held him firmly. 

“It shall hang in my house,” he continued, “that 
my children may remember how once there were 
Frenchmen befouling the holy ground of Morocco.” 

Once more Marguerite heard the rattle of the medals 
as the coat was restored, and the Moor cried out: 
“There will be none alive in Fez this night. Salam 
aleikum, O man of Meknes!” And a little afterwards 
the door was slammed and barred. 

Paul returned to the court, holding the tunic in his 
hands. The peril of the last few moments was swept 
altogether out of his mind. For a moment Marguerite 
herself was forgotten. He was holding the badge of 
many years of honourable service, and the shining 
medals which proved that the service had been of real 
value to the country he served. All was now wasted 
and foregone. 

“I should make the sacrifice again,” he said obstin¬ 
ately to himself, “if it were to make again. I should! 
I should!” 

But he had not borne to see the tunic and its medals 
paraded in triumph on the back of one of these assas- 


170 The Winding Stair 

sins through the streets of Fez. When he stopped the 
Moor and held him back from his companions, his 
hand had gripped close the revolver hidden in his waist¬ 
band. Had the man clung to the tunic, Paul would 
have killed, whatever the risk. The traditions and the 
whole training of his life had forced his hand. He 
knew that, as he stood in the silent sunlit patio fond¬ 
ling the stuff of the coat between his fingers, and his 
heart aching as though some little snake had slipped 
into his bosom and was feeding there. 

“I have done what my father did,” he thought. “I, 
who set out to atone for him.” And he laughed aloud 
with so much mockery at his own pretensions that the 
laughter startled him. “I can plead a different reason. 
But what of that? I have done what my father did!” 

He folded the tunic reverently, and laid it down 
again in the alcove. As he stood up he was startled 
by the clatter of something falling overhead and the 
sharp explosion of a pistol. He looked upwards. The 
sound had come from behind those curtains where 
Marguerite was hidden. Had she been watching? 
Had she seen him fondling the tunic? Had she heard 
his bitter laughter? Perhaps he had spoken aloud. 
For a moment his heart stood still. Some words that 
Henriette had said to him—oh, ever so long ago, in 
the Villa Iris, flashed back into his mind. “Even if 
the grand passion comes—oh la, la la!—she will blow 
her brains out, the little fool!” 

He sprang up the stairs, crying “Marguerite! Mar¬ 
guerite!” and stumbling in his haste. No answer was 
returned to him. He tore the curtains aside, and saw 
her lying on the floor by the side of a divan. The 
pistol had slipped from her hand and fallen a little 
way from her. Paul flung himself upon his knees be- 


The Tunic 


171 


side her, lifted her, and pressed her close to his heart. 
“Marguerite! Marguerite!” he whispered. There 
was no wound, and she was breathing, and in a mo¬ 
ment or two her eyes opened. Paul understood in 
that supreme moment of relief how greatly his love of 
Marguerite overpowered his grief at honour lost. 

“Oh, my dear, you frightened me!” he said. 

She smiled as he lifted her onto the divan. 

“I was foolish,” she answered. 

She had waited upon the outcome of that wild scene 
in the court below, her nerves steady, her mind uncon¬ 
scious of any effort to steel herself against catastrophe. 
She could catch but a glimpse of what was going for¬ 
ward; she did not understand the trick by which Paul 
Ravenel had appeased the invaders; she heard the wild 
babble of their frenzied voices and Paul’s voice over¬ 
topping them. She had waited serenely with her little 
pistol in her hand, safety to be reached so easily by the 
mere pressure of a finger. Then suddenly all was 
over; the court was empty, the house which had rung 
with fury a moment since was silent; and as she heard 
the bolts of the door shot once more into their sockets 
her strength had melted away. She had stood for a 
little while in a daze and, catching at the divan as she 
fell, had slipped in a swoon to the floor. The pistol 
fell from her hand and exploded as it fell. 

“I was foolish,” she repeated; “I didn’t understand 
what had happened. I don’t even now.” 

“I was afraid that some time or another some one 
had seen me enter this house and remembered it,” Paul 
Ravenel explained. “Last night something happened 
outside the door—what, I don’t know, but enough to 
trouble me a little. So after you had gone to bed I 
boiled a kettle—” 


172 


The Winding Stair 

“Yes, I heard it.” 

“And sterilized my big knife. I drove the knife 
through my arm and let the blood soak through my 
tunic, and then I stabbed the tunic again in the back. 
It was lucky that I did.” 

“What should I have done without you?” she said, 
as she rested upon the cushions of the divan. She laid 
a hand gently in his. 

“Does the wound hurt, Paul?” 

“It throbs a little if I move it. That’s all. It’s noth¬ 
ing.” 

“I’ll dress it again to-night,” she said, sleepily, and 
almost immediately she fell asleep. She slept so deeply, 
that a muffled roar, which shook the house, did not 
even trouble her dreams. Paul smiled as he heard 
that sound. “That’s one of the seventy-five,” he re¬ 
flected. The guns from the camp at Dar-Debibagh 
were coming into action. 

He left Marguerite sleeping, and climbed again to 
the roof. The guns were firing to the south of the 
town, and were still far away. But no man who had 
fought through the Chaiouia Campaign could ever for¬ 
get the tribesmen’s terror of the guns. 

“Another day or two!” 

Paul counted up the stages of the march of Moinier’s 
column from Meknes. If only he was quick, so that 
the tribesmen could not mass between him and Fez! 
There were houses alight now in Fez-el-Bali. The 
work of massacre was going on. But let General 
Moinier hurry, and the guns over there at Dar-Debi¬ 
bagh talk insistently to Fez! Moreover, at five o’clock 
the rain began again. It fell like javelins, with the 
thunder of surf upon a beach. 


CHAPTER XV 


On the Roof Top 


M ARGUERITE drove her two trembling 
negresses out of the corners into which they 
had flown when the house was invaded, stood 
over them while they cooked the dinner, and strictly 
ordered that it should be served with the proper cere¬ 
monies. She dressed herself in her European clothes 
and with even more, to-night, of the scrupulous dainti¬ 
ness which was habitual to her. Paul watched her 
with a great pride and wonderment. 

“How in the world do you know at once what we 
have to learn?” he asked. “When people are rattled, 
routine’s the great remedy. Just doing the ordinary 
things at the ordinary hours lifts you along with a 
sort of assurance that life is going to be as sane to¬ 
morrow as it was yesterday. But we have men to 
watch, and they teach us these things. Where do you 
get them from?” 

“From myself,” answered Marguerite, with a blush 
upon her cheeks, which her lover’s praise never failed 
to provoke. “I had to keep my own little flag of 
courage flying if I could.” 

At half-past nine they heard Selim’s three knocks 
upon the outer door, and Paul let him in and brought 
him to Marguerite in the room opening on to the patio. 
He brought with him a budget of black news. A 
couple of officers had been dragged from their horses 

and butchered in the streets. An engineer and his wife 

173 


174 


The Winding Stair 

in Fez Djedid had been shot down as they sat at their 
luncheon. There had been an attack upon the Hotel de 
France, where the managress and a priest had been 
slain. 

“There is a house in the Tala quarter,” said Paul, 
“where two veterinary surgeons and two other officers 
lodged. I saw men breaking through the roof to get 
at them this afternoon.” 

“They escaped, Sidi. They let themselves down 
from a window into an alley. It is believed that they 
are hiding in a covered drain.” 

“And the four French telegraph operators. They, 
too, occupied a house in the Tala.” 

Selim had no good tidings to tell of them. The 
door of their house had been forced at midday. 
Throughout the afternoon they had resisted in an up¬ 
per room, which they had barricaded, firing with what 
weapons they had until their ammunition was ex¬ 
hausted. At seven in the evening a rescue party had 
arrived, but only one of them was alive, and he griev¬ 
ously wounded. 

“A rescue party!” asked Paul, wondering whence 
that party had come. There was not enough men at 
the headquarters in the hospital to do more than pro¬ 
tect the quarter of the Consulates, even if they could 
do that. 

“A battalion from Dar-Debibagh forced its way 
into the city at five o’clock this afternoon,” said Selim. 

Paul’s face took life, his eyes kindled. No one knew 
better than he the difficulties which must have ham¬ 
pered that exploit. 

“That was well done,” he cried. “Whose battalion?” 

The old Algerian soldier replied: 

“The Commandant Philipot’s.” 


On the Roof Top 175 

The gladness died out of Paul Ravenel’s face, and 
he sat in silence staring at the tiles of the floor. To 
Marguerite it was as though the light of a lamp waned 
and flickered out. She laid her hand upon his. 

“That’s your battalion, Paul?” 

Paul nodded, and whispered “Yes,” not trusting his 
voice over much. 

“You should have been with it, my dear. But for 
me you would have led your company,” she said, re¬ 
morsefully ; and he cried out aloud suddenly in a voice 
which she had never heard him use before, a voice 
rough and violent and full of pain. 

“I am on leave.” 

Hearing him, she felt the compunction of one who 
has carelessly knocked against a throbbing wound. 
Her eyes went swiftly to his face. During these mo¬ 
ments Paul Ravenel was off his guard, and she was* 
looking upon a man in torture. 

“The little Praslin will be leading my company,” he 
said, “and leading it just as well as I could have done.” 
He turned again to Selim. “Did the battalion have 
trouble to get through ?” 

“Great trouble, Sidi. The commandant tried to 
come in by the little gate in the Aguedal wall and the 
new gardens of the Sultan. But he was attacked by a 
swarm of men issuing from the Segma Gate on his left 
flank and by sharp-shooters on the wall itself in front 
of him.” 

“And we taught them to shoot!” cried Paul in exas¬ 
peration. “The commandant was held up?” 

“Yes, Sidi.” 

“What then? He was losing men, and quickly. 
What did he do?” Paul asked impatiently. His own 
men were under fire. He had got to know, and at 


176 


The Winding Stair 

once. “Out with it, Selim. What did the Comman¬ 
dant Philipot do?” 

“He led his battalion down into the bed of the river 
Zitoun,” said Selim, and a long “Oh!” of admiration 
and relief from Paul welcomed the manoeuvre. He 
spread before his eyes, in mind, an imaginary map of 
the difficult ground at that southwest corner of the city, 
outside the walls. Pressed hardly upon his left flank, 
at the mercy of the riflemen on the crest of the high, 
unscalable wall of the Aguedal, Commandant Philipot, 
leaving a rear-guard—trust the Commandant Philipot 
for that!—had disappeared with his battalion into the 
earth. Paul chuckled as he thought of it—the ingenu¬ 
ity and the audacity, too! 

“He made for the Bab-el-Hadid ?” he said. 

“Yes,” answered Selim. 

There had been risk, of course, risk of the gravest 
kind. Out of shot, the battalion certainly was—out of 
shot and out of sight. But, on the other hand, in the 
deep cha&m of the Oued Zitoun it could not see any 
more than could its antagonists. If its rear-guard 
was overwhelmed by the insurgents from the Segma 
Gate, if a strong band of tribesmen rode up to the 
southern lip of the chasm and caught the battalion 
floundering below amongst the boulders and the swollen 
river! Why, there was an end of that battalion and, 
for the moment, of the relief of Fez. But he had got 
through—there was the fact. And by no other way 
and with no smaller risk could he have got through. 
Paul Ravenel, watching that unprinted map upon the 
floor, over which he bent, had no doubt upon that point. 
A great risk nobly taken for a great end, and adroitly 
imagined! And with what speed they must have cov¬ 
ered that difficult ground! 


177 


On the Roof Top 

“Well, the little Praslin would lead very well,” he 
said aloud, but with just a hint of effort in his cor¬ 
diality. “He knows his work.” 

“And you are on leave, Paul?” 

Marguerite was watching her lover with startled 
eyes. But Paul noticed neither her look nor the urgent 
appeal of her voice. He was away with his company 
in the bed of the Oued Zitoun, now stumbling over the 
great stones, now flung down headlong by the rush of 
the rain-swollen torrent and pressing on again in the 
hurried march He sat tracing with his finger on the 
tiles the convolutions of the river, the point where the 
battalion must leave its shelter and march through the 
gardens to the gates—lost to all else. And Marguerite, 
watching him, caught at any reason which could re¬ 
assure her. 

Of course, Paul was unconsciously expressing the 
regret of a true soldier that his company had gone upon 
difficult and hazardous service without him, and a 
soldier’s interest in a brilliant manoeuvre successfully 
accomplished. His absorption meant no more than 
that. But—but—his cry, “I am on leave,” startled out 
of him a challenge, an obstinate defiance, harsh with 
pain, rang in her ears still, argue as she might. In 
spite of herself, an appalling suspicion flickered like 
lightning through her mind and went out—and flick¬ 
ered again. 

She heard Paul asking questions of Selim and Selim 
answering. But she was asking of herself a question 
which made all other questions of little significance. 
If her suspicion were true, could his love for her re¬ 
main? Could it live strongly and steadily after so 
enormous a sacrifice? Wouldn’t it die in contempt of 
himself and hatred of her? If Paul Ravenel had 


178 The Winding Stair 

looked at Marguerite Lambert at this moment he 
would have seen the haggard dancing girl of the Villa 
Iris, as he had seen her under the grape-vine of the 
balcony with her seven francs clenched in her hand. 

Paul, however, was giving his attention to Selim. 
The quarter of the hospitals and the Consulates was 
now thought to be safe, though the Moors, uplifted 
by their success, had planned to attack it that night. 
An attempt had been made by a company of Philipot’s 
battalion to force the Souk-Ben-Safi and its intricate, 
narrow streets, but the company had been driven back. 
A second company had been sent out to capture and 
hold the Bab-el-Mahroud, but it was now beleaguered 
and fighting for its life. Another section was at the 
Bab Fetouh, in the south of the town, under fire from 
the small mosque of Tamdert. A good many isolated 
Europeans had been rescued from the houses, and 
brought into the protected quarter, but Fez, as a whole, 
was still in the hands of the insurgents. 

At this point Paul Ravenel broke in with a sharp 
question. 

“You spoke to no one of this house ?” 

Selim shook his head. 

“To no one, Sidi.” 

“To none of the French soldiers? To no friend of 
the French? You are sure, Selim? You are very 
sure? There were no Europeans to be rescued from 
this house ? Answer me truthfully!” 

Never was question more insistently expressed. 
Why?—why?—why? . . . Marguerite found herself 
asking whilst her heart sank. That their secret might 
still be kept, its sweetness preserved for them? No, 
that reason was inadequate. Why, then? Because the 
danger was over? But it was not over. So much 


179 


On the Roof Top 

Selim had made very clear. The few troops had been 
withdrawn to the protected quarter of the Consulates. 
The detachments outside were hard put to it. The 
city of Fez was still in the hands of the insurgents. 
Why then? Why the eagerness that the French 
should know nothing of this secret house? Oh, there 
was an answer, dared she but listen to it! An answer 
with consequences as yet only dimly suspected. If it 
was the true answer!—Marguerite sat stunned. How 
was she to get away quite by herself that she might 
think her problem out, without betraying the trouble 
of her mind to Paul ? 

It was Paul himself who made escape easy for her. 
He dismissed Selim and said to Marguerite: 

‘Til go up on the roof, my dear, for a little while. 
The rain has stopped, but, dressed as you are, it 
wouldn’t be wise for you to come.” 

The excuse was feeble, and he spoke looking away 
from Marguerite—a rare thing with him. But Mar¬ 
guerite welcomed the excuse and had no eyes for the 
shifty look of him as he made it. 

“Very well,” she said, in a dull voice, and Paul went 
quickly up the stairs. 

Selim’s story had moved him to the depths of his 
soul. He was conscious of an actual nausea. “I should 
make the sacrifice again.” He repeated a phrase which 
had been growing familiar to him during this day, re¬ 
peated it with a stubborn emphasis. But he was be¬ 
ginning to understand dimly what the sacrifice was to 
cost him. Soldiering was his business in life. He was 
sealed to it. He had known it when he stood in his 
father’s death room on the islet off the coast of Spain; 
and when he sat over Colonel Vanderfelt’s wine in the 
dining room looking out upon the moonlit garden; but 


180 The Winding Stair 

never so completely as now when his thoughts were 
with the men of his company stumbling in the river 
bed, and his feet were dragging up the stairs to the 
roof. 

“I must be alone for a little while, otherwise Mar- . 
guerite will guess the truth.” 

It was an instinct rather than a formulated thought 
which drove him upwards. He dreaded Marguerite’s 
swift intuitions, that queer way she had of reaching 
certainty, cleaving her way to it like a bird through the 
air. He drew a long breath as he crept out upon the 
roof. He was alone now, and, sinking down upon the 
cushions underneath the parapet, he wrestled with his 
grief, letting it have its way up here in the darkness so 
that he might confine it the more surely afterwards. 
For an hour on this first night of the revolt he re¬ 
mained alone upon the roof-top whilst Marguerite, 
separated from him by the height of the beleaguered 
house, sat amongst the lighted candles in the room by 
the court, steeling herself to a sacrifice which should 
equal his. 

When she was sure of herself she wrapped a dark 
cloak about her shining frock and climbed in her turn 
to the roof. But she moved very silently, and when 
she raised her head above the trap she saw her lover 
stretched upon the terrace, his turban thrown aside, his 
face buried in his arms, his whole attitude one of al¬ 
most Oriental grief. He was unaware of her until she 
crouched by his side and, with something maternal in 
the loving pity of her hands, gently stroked his head. 

“Paul!” she whispered, and he sprang swiftly up. 
She got a glimpse of a tortured face, and then he 
dropped by her side and, putting his arms about her, 
caught her to his heart. 


181 


On the Roof Top 

“My dear! My dear!” he said. 

“Paul,” she began, in a breaking voice, but Paul 
would not listen. He pointed his arm westwards over 
the parapet. 

“Look r 

In their neighbourhood all was quiet, though here 
and there a building was burning near enough to light 
up from time to time their faces. But away in the 
southwest a broad red glare canopied the quarter and 
flames leapt and sank. 

“What is that?” asked Marguerite, distracted from 
her purpose. 

“The Mellah,” replied Paul. “They have looted and 
burnt it. It’s the rule and custom. Whatever the 
cause of an uprising, the Mellah is the first to suffer.” 

Marguerite had never set foot in that quarter. Paul 
described it to her—its dirty and crowded alleys, its 
blue-washed houses jammed together and packed with 
rich treasures and gaudy worthlessness, gramophones 
blaring out some comic song of London or Paris, slat¬ 
ternly women and men, ten thousand of them, and then 
the bursting in of the gates. 

“And the Jews themselves! What has become of 
them?” she asked, with a shudder. 

“God knows!” 

Unarmed, pounded like sheep within their high walls, 
they were likely to have been butchered like sheep, too. 

“There’s a small new gate, however, leading to their 
cemetery. They may have found that way free,” said 
Paul, without any confidence. But, as a fact, they had 
escaped whilst their houses were being plundered. The 
gardens of the Sultan’s Palace, which adjoined, had 
been swiftly thrown open to them, and at this very 
moment they were camping there without food or 


182 


The Winding Stair 

money or shelter—except the lucky ones who had made 
little family groups in the empty cages of Mulai Hafid’s 
menagerie between the lions and the jaguars. 

“Paul”—Marguerite began a second time, but now 
a rattle of firing and a distant clamour of fierce cries 
broke out upon their left hand. Paul Ravenel turned 
in the direction of the noise eagerly, and as Marguerite 
turned with him, once more her attention was arrested. 
From a semi-circle of streets a blaze of light across 
which thick volumes of smoke drifted, rose above the 
house-tops, so that the faces of the two watchers were 
lit up as by a sunset. 

“It is the attack upon the Consulates,” said Paul. 
“It will fail. There are troops enough now to hold it.” 

On the other side of the city, however, to the north, 
it was a different matter. By the Bab-el-Mahroud the 
French outpost was hard-pressed. Paul was listen¬ 
ing with all his intentness. 

“It sounds as if our ammunition was running short,” 
he said, in a low, grave voice; and this time Marguerite 
was not to be denied. Kneeling up, she caught Paul 
by the arms as he sat, and turned him toward her. 
The light, strong and bright, was sweeping across his 
face in waves. 

“Paul, is it true?” she asked, searching his eyes. 

Paul Ravenel had no need to ask what was true; 
he had no heart to deny its truth. The thing which 
most he dreaded had come to pass. Marguerite knew 
what he had done. He had been certain that she knew 
from the moment when she had laid her hand upon 
his head. 

“Yes,” he answered, meeting her gaze. “It is true.” 

“You are not on leave!” 


On the Roof Top 


183 


“No.” 

“You have deserted!” 

Paul’s face twitched with a spasm of pain, but he 
did not take his eyes from Marguerite. 

“Yes,” he said. 

Marguerite shook him gently as one might shake a 
wayward child. 

“But you can’t do that, Paul.” 

“I have done it, Marguerite.” 

“Oh, Paul—you can’t have understood what you 
were doing! You can’t have thought!” 

“I have thought of everything.” 

“You have sacrificed your honour.” 

“I have you.” 

“Your career.” 

“I have you.” 

“You have lost every friend.” 

“What do I care about friend’s, Marguerite, when I 
have you ?” 

She let go of his arms with such an expression of 
grief and despair upon her face as cut him to the 
heart to see. She bowed her forehead upon the palms 
of her hands and burst into tears. Paul drew her 
close to him, seeking to comfort her. 

“We shall be together, Marguerite, always. Yes¬ 
terday night, when I foretold you of these massacres 
—you took it lightly because we were together. You 
seemed to say nothing in the world mattered so long 
as we were together.” 

“But don’t you see, Paul”—she drew herself away 
and raised her face, down which tears were running— 
“we have been both of us alone to-night—already. You 
here on the roof—I in the court below—and we wanted 


184 


The Winding Stair 

to be alone, yes, my dear—why deny it, since I know ? 
We wanted to be alone, each of us with our miserable 
thoughts. ... In a little while you’ll hate me.” 

“No,” he said, violently. “That could never be.” 

She bent her head over his hands and pressed them 
to her eyes, wetting them with her tears. 

“Paul,” she whispered between her sobs, “I can’t 
take such a sacrifice. Oh, my dear, you should have 
left me with my seven francs and my broken bundle 
on that balcony in Casablanca.” 

Paul stooped and kissed her hair. 

“Marguerite, I wouldn’t have left you there for any¬ 
thing in the world. From the moment I saw you there 
was no world for me, except the world in which you 
and I moved step by step and hand-in-hand.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


Marguerite’s Way Out 

G RADUALLY the attack upon the Consulates 
died away. The waving light from the blaze 
of torches in the ring of streets about that 
quarter diminished, and darkness came again to the 
watchers upon the roof top. They sat huddled together 
in silence. Marguerite’s broken sobbing had ceased. 
Above them the bright stars wheeled in a sky of velvet. 
Only away to the north, where the beleaguered post still 
held out at the Bab-eLMahroud, was there now any 
sound of bring, or any faint clamour of voices. The 
troubled city rested, waiting for daylight. 

Paul became conscious that Marguerite was stirring 
out of the abandonment of grief in which she had lain. 
He felt her supple body stiffen in his arms. Some 
idea, some plan perhaps, had occurred to her of which 
he must beware; all the more because she did not speak 
of it. He was pondering what that plan might be, 
when above their heads, in their very ears it seemed, 
the first mueddin on the balcony of his minaret launched 
over the city his vibrant call to prayer. 

The sound startled them both so that they clung to¬ 
gether. 

“Don’t move,” whispered Paul. 

“The Companions of the Sick!” said Marguerite, in 
a low voice. “My dear, we shall need them to-night as 
much as any two in Fez.” 

They waited for a few moments. Then they crept 

185 


186 


The Winding Stair 

swiftly and silently to the hatchway and closed it above 
their heads. In Marguerite’s room Paul lighted the 
candles. Marguerite was wearing the little frock of 
white and silver in which she had dressed the night 
before, and she let the dark cloak slip from her shoul¬ 
ders and fall about her feet. 

“Paul,” she said, joining her hands together upon 
her breast in appeal. “I want you to do something— 
for me. You can walk safely through the streets. 
Dressed as you are, no one will know you. No one 
will suspect you. If you are spoken to, you can an¬ 
swer. You are Ben Sedira the Meknasi. I want you 
to go at once to the Protected quarter.” 

“Why, Marguerite?” 

“You can rejoin your battalion.” 

“No.” 

“Oh, you can, Paul! You can make yourself known. 
They will let you through their barricades.” 

“It is too late,” said Paul. 

Marguerite would not accept the quiet statement. 

“No,” she pleaded, her eyes eager, her mouth 
trembling. “I have been thinking it out, my dear, up 
there on the roof. You can make an excuse. You 
were seized yesterday night after you had visited the 
Headquarters. You were pulled from your horse. 
You were kept imprisoned and escaped to-night.” 

Paul shook his head. 

“No one would believe that story, Marguerite. 
The people of Fez are making no prisoners.” 

“Then you took refuge in the house of a friend! 
You have many friends in Fez, Paul. A word from 
you and any one of them will back you up and say he 
gave you shelter. It’ll be so easy, Paul, if you’ll only 
listen.” 


187 


Marguerite’s Way Out 

“And meanwhile, Marguerite, what of you?” 

She was waiting for that question with her answer 
ready upon her lips. 

“Yes. I have thought of that too, Paul. I shall be 
quite safe here now by myself. They have searched 
this house already. They went away satisfied with 
your story. They will not come here again.” 

Paul smiled at her tenderly. She stood before him 
with so eager a flush upon her face, a light so appeal¬ 
ing in her eyes. Only this morning—was it so short 
a time ago as this morning?—yes, only this morning 
she had been terrified, even with him at her side, be¬ 
cause they were shut in within this house without win¬ 
dows, because they could see nothing, know nothing, 
and must wait and wait with their hearts fluttering at 
a cry, at the crack of a rifle, at the sound of a step. 
Now her one thought was to send him forth, to endure 
alone the dreadful hours of ignorance and expectation, 
to meet, if needs must, the loneliest of deaths, so that 
his honour might be saved and his high career retained. 

“You are thinking too much of me, Marguerite,” he 
said, gently. 

Marguerite shook her head. 

“I am thinking of myself, my dear, just as much as 
I am thinking of you. I am thinking of your love for 
me. What am I without it?” 

“Nothing will change that,” protested Paul. 

Marguerite smiled wistfully. 

“My dear, how many lovers have used and listened 
to those words? Is there one pair that hasn’t? I am 
looking forward, Paul, to when this trouble is over— 
to the best that is possible for us two if we are alive 
when it is over. Your way! Flight, concealment for 
the rest of our lives and a bond of disgrace to hold us 


188 


The Winding Stair 

together instead of a bond of love which has done no 
harm to any one and has given a world of happiness to 
both of us. Paul, my way is the better way! Oh, be¬ 
lieve it and leave me! Paul, I am pleading for myself 
—I am!—and”—the light went out of her eyes, her 
head and her body drooped a little; he had never seen 
anything so forlorn as Marguerite suddenly looked— 
“and, oh, ever so much more than you imagine!” she 
added, wistfully. 

Paul took her by the arm which hung listlessly at 
her side. 

“My dear, I can invent no story which would save 
me. The first shot was fired at noon to-day, not yes¬ 
terday. Nothing can alter that. And even if it could 
be altered, I won’t leave you to face these horrors 
alone. I brought you to Fez—don’t let us forget that! 
I hid you in this house. My place is here with you.” 

But whilst he was speaking Ravenel had a feeling 
that he had not reached to the heart of the plan which 
she had formed upon the roof. The sudden change in 
her aspect, the quick drop from eager pleading to a 
forlorn hopelessness, the wistful cry, “I am pleading 
for myself ever so much more than you imagine!”— 
No, he had not the whole of her intention. There was 
more in her mind than the effort to persuade him to 
leave her. There was a provision, a remedy, if per¬ 
suasion failed. 

Paul let her arm go and drew back a step or two until 
he leaned against a table of walnut wood set against 
the wall. Marguerite turned to the dressing-table and 
stood playing absently with her little ornaments, her 
brushes, and her combs. Then she surprised him by 
another change of mood. The eager, tender appeal, 


Marguerite’s Way Out 189 

the sudden hopelessness were followed now by a trip¬ 
ping flippancy. 

“Fancy your caring so much for me, Paul!” she 
cried, and she tittered like a schoolgirl. “A' little danc¬ 
ing thing from the Villa Iris! I am not worth it. Am 
I, Paul?” 

She turned to him, soliciting “Yes” for an answer, 
smiling with her lips though she could not with her 
eyes, and keeping these latter lowered so that he should 
not see them. “Well, since your silence tells me so 
politely that I am, I’ll give up trying to persuade you 
to leave me.” She yawned. “I am tired to death, 
Paul. I shall sleep to-night. And you?” 

She cocked her head on one side with a coquettish 
gaiety, false to her at any time, and never so false to 
her as now. To Paul, whose memory had warned him 
for the second time that day, it was quite dreadful to 
see. 

“I shall watch in the court below,” he said, and 
he moved a step or two away from the little table 
against the wall. 

“Then go, or I shall fall asleep where I stand,” said 
Marguerite, and she led him to the wide doors opening 
on to the landing. “I shall leave the doors open, so 
that you will be within call.” 

She gave him a little push which was more of a 
caress than a push, and suddenly caught him back to 
her. Her eyes were raised now, her arms were about 
his neck. 

“Paul,” she whispered, and both eyes and lips were 
smiling gravely, “whatever happens to me, my dear, 
I shall owe you some wonderful months of happiness. 
Months which I had dreamed of, and which proved 


190 


The Winding Stair 

more wonderful than any dreams. Thank you, dear 
one! Thank you a thousand times!” 

She kissed him upon the lips and laid her hand upon 
his cheek and stood apart from him. 

“Good-night, Paul.” 

Paul Ravenel answered her with a curious smile. 

“You might be saying good-bye to me, Marguerite.” 

Marguerite shook her head with determination. 

“I shall never say good-bye to you, Paul, not even 
if this very second we were to hear the assassins surg¬ 
ing up the stairs,” she said, her eyes glowing softly 
into his, and a sure faith making her face very beauti¬ 
ful. “We have broken codes and laws, my dear, both 
of us. But we have both touched, I think, in spite of 
that, something bigger and finer than we had either of 
us believed was here to touch. And I don’t believe 
that—you and I”—she made a little gesture with her 
hand between herself and him—“the miracle as you 
called it, of you and me can end just snapped off and 
incomplete. Why, my dear, even if we go right back 
to earth, at the very worst, I believe,” she said, with a 
smile of humour, “some spark of you will kindle some 
dry tinder of me and make a flame to warm a luckier 
pair of lovers.” 

Paul looked at her in silence. 

“You talk to me like that!” he said, at length. “And 
then you try to persuade me you weren’t worth while.” 
He turned the moment of emotion with a laugh. 
“Good-night, Marguerite,” and he went downstairs. 

Marguerite waited without moving whilst he de¬ 
scended the stairs and crossed the court. She heard 
him pass into the room with the archway and the 
clocks. He was quite invisible to her now. Therefore, 


Marguerite’s Way Out 191 

so was she to him; and she was standing very close to 
the doors; just within her bedroom—no more. She 
stepped back silently. There were rugs upon the floor, 
and between the rugs she stepped most carefully lest 
one of the heels of her satin shoes should clack upon the 
boards. She went straight to the little table of walnut 
wood set against the wall and laid her hand upon the 
drawer. The handle was of brass; she lifted it so that 
it should not rattle, and so stood with an ear towards 
the stairway, listening. But no sound came from the 
court, there was not a creak of any tread on the stairs. 
Reassured, Marguerite pulled open the drawer a little 
way. The table had been fashioned in a century when 
tables really were made. The drawer slid out smoothly 
and noiselessly just far enough for Marguerite’s hand 
to slip through the opening. 

Her fingers, however, touched nothing. She opened 
the drawer wider. It was empty. Yet it had not been 
empty that evening when she had changed her clothes. 

“Paul was standing here,” she said to herself. “Yes, 
facing me with his back to the table, whilst I was talk¬ 
ing to him.” 

She remembered now that when she had thrown her 
arms about his neck, as he stood in the doorway, he 
had kept his left hand behind his back. She sat down 
upon the edge of the bed, and a smile flitted across her 
face. 

“I might have known that he would have under¬ 
stood,” she whispered. He always had understood 
from the first moment when, without a word, he had 
called her to him at the Villa Iris. But Marguerite 
must make sure. She stole out on to the landing. 
From the point where she stood she could look down 


192 


The Winding Stair 

and across the court into the room with the clocks. 
Paul was lying upon the cushions in a muse, looking 
at something which lay darkly gleaming on the out¬ 
stretched palm of his hand—her little automatic pistol. 
He had cleaned it and reloaded it and replaced it in the 
drawer that afternoon, after Marguerite had fainted 
and it had exploded on the floor. He had taken it out 
of the drawer when Marguerite was bidding him good¬ 
bye a few minutes back. For, mingled with her words, 
another and a coarser voice had been whispering in his 
ears. “And if it comes—the grand passion! She will 
blow her brains out—the little fool!” 

Not from disillusionment, as Henriette with her bit¬ 
ter experience of life expected, but to save him, Paul 
Ravenel, to set him free, whilst there was still perhaps 
a chance that by some deft lie he might hold on to his 
career and his good name. “That, no!” said Paul, and 
he pushed the pistol into his waistbelt and composed 
himself for his long vigil. 

The candles burned down, and one by one flickered 
out; mueddin succeeded mueddin in the minaret; but 
for their voices the town was quiet; Paul Ravenel tired 
with the anxiety, the sleeplessness, and the inward con¬ 
flicts which through thirty hours had been his share, 
nodded, dozed, and in the end slept. He woke to find 
the grey of the morning thinning the shadows in the 
house, making it chill and eerie and an abode of ghosts. 
Surely a ghost was stirring in the house with a little 
flutter and hiss of unsubstantial raiment, a ripple of 
silver and fire—there by the balustrade above the patio, 
now on the stairs. . . . And now Paul Ravenel, 
though he did not move, was wide awake, watching 
from his dark corner with startled eyes. Marguerite 


193 


Marguerite’s Way Out 

was on the stairs, now stopping to peer over towards 
her lover, lest he should have moved, now most stealth¬ 
ily descending. 

The last mueddin had ceased his chant, a hum of 
voices rose through the still air without the house; the 
city was waking to another day of massacre. And 
Marguerite was creeping down the stairs. She had not 
gone to bed that night, after all. She was still wearing 
her white frock with the embroidery of silver. She 
had thrown over her shoulders a glistening cloak. She 
had put on the jewels he had given her. They sparkled 
in the dim light on her bosom—a square sapphire hung 
on a chain of platinum and diamonds which went 
about her neck—on her wrists, on her shoes, at her 
waist. 

“Why? Why?” he asked of himself; and as Mar¬ 
guerite reached the foot of the stairs and stepped into 
the court, he had the answer to his question. For 
something gleamed in her hand—the great key of the 
street door. 

Paul Ravenel was just in time. For with the swift¬ 
ness and the silence of the ghost he had almost taken 
her to be, Marguerite flashed across the patio, and was 
gone. 

“Marguerite!” he cried aloud, as he sprang to his 
feet, so that the house rang with his cry. A' sob, a 
wail of despair answered him, a clink as the heavy key 
dropped from her startled hands. He found her blindly 
fumbling at the bolts, distraught with her need of 
haste. 

“Paul, let me go! Let me go!” she cried. 

He lifted her in his arms as one lifts a child and car¬ 
ried her back into the court. 


194 The Winding Stair 

“Marguerite!” he whispered. “A step outside that 
tunnel dressed as you are, now that Fez is awake, 
and—” 

“I know, I know,” she interrupted him. “I should 
be out of your way altogether. Oh, Paul, let me go! 
I have been thinking of it all night. I can't take, all 
the time, and everything you have that’s dear to you! 
Let me give too—something in return—my life, my 
dear, that’s worth so little. Oh, Paul, let me give it 
now, when I am ready to give it—before my courage 
goes,” and she struggled and beat upon his breast with 
her small fists in a frenzy. 

But he held her close to him. “Poor child, what a 
night of horror she must have lived through,” he re¬ 
flected. Lying on her bed in the dark, waiting for the 
first gleam of dawn, for the first sounds of the city’s 
awakening, and shutting her eyes and her ears against 
the terror of these savage and wild-eyed fanatics, for¬ 
bidding her heart to sink before the ordeal of her great 
sacrifice. She had decked herself out in her jewels, 
like that bride of whom she had told him, but for a 
different reason; that she might the sooner attract no¬ 
tice and invite murder. 

“It was mad, Marguerite!” he cried, and then, hold¬ 
ing her to his heart. “But it was splendid!” 

Already her strength was waning. She no longer 
struggled. She hung in his arms. Her hands stroked 
his face. 

“Let me go, Paul,” she pleaded, “won’t you? It 
will be quick. The first of them who sees me! Oh, 
while I can do it. My dear, my dear, I’ll gladly die 
for you, I love you so.” 

“Quick?” exclaimed Paul Ravenel, savagely. “You 
don’t know them! I have seen our men on the battle- 



195 


Marguerite’s Way Out 

fields. Quick? My dear, they would bind you hand 
and foot and give you to their women to mutilate 
alive. ,, 

Marguerite uttered a cry and struggled against him 
no more. He carried her up the stairs, undressed her, 
and put her to bed. She laid her hand in his. He 
would have his way. She gave herself into his keep¬ 
ing and, holding fast on to his hand, she fell asleep. 

That morning the roar of the guns was louder, and 
the shells were flying over the city. 


CHAPTER XVII 


The Outcasts 

T HAT day, the eighteenth of April, broke in 
gloom. A heavy canopy of sullen clouds hung 
over Fez. Nowhere within eye’s reach was 
there a slant of sunshine. There were no shadows, no 
flashes of colour. White houses and dark gardens and 
green-tiled mosques all lay very clear and near and dis¬ 
tinct, but without any of the radiance which on a day 
of sunlight gives to the city so magical a beauty, that a 
stranger looking down upon it can believe that he has 
wandered into fairyland. 

The shells were screaming over Fez from the south. 
They dispersed the Moors holding the North Fort out¬ 
side the walls, and they destroyed the Castle of Sidi 
Bou Nafa in Fez Jdedid, close to the Sultan’s Palace, 
which was held in force by the insurgents. But there 
were too many refugees still hiding and too many Fazi 
secretly friendly to the French to make possible such a 
bombardment as would reduce the city to terms. 

The insurgents were still in possession of every 
quarter of the town except the Sultan’s Palace and the 
district of the Embassy and Consulates. The little post 
at the Bab-el-Mahroud had been exterminated during 
the night. The company of which that post had been 
a section, under Captain Henry, subsequently to be 
famous as a general upon a wider field, was fighting its 
way desperately back in the Souk Senadjine. Another 

company sent to join hands with him and occupy the 

196 


The Outcasts 


197 


quarter of Tala was held up in the Souk-Ben-Safi; and 
the post at the southern gate of Bab Fetouh was in 
desperate straits. The only gleam that morning was 
the rescue of the guests besieged in the Hotel de France 
under the covering fire of a platoon stationed on the 
roof of the British Consulate. The screams of the 
women indeed shrilled from the terraces with a fiercer 
exultation than even on the outbreak of the rising. 

Marguerite woke later to the sound of them. She 
held her hands over her ears and called loudly to Paul: 

“I want to look at your arm,” she said, when he ran 
to her. 

“It's going on finely. It can wait until you are 
dressed.” 

“No.” 

She slipped her legs out of bed and sat on the edge 
of it, thrusting her feet into her slippers. She wanted 
to do something at once which would take her thoughts 
from that piercing and inhuman din. Paul brought to 
her the medicine-chest and she dressed and bandaged 
the half-healed wound. 

“Thank you, Marguerite. Til tell them to get your 
bath ready,” he said, as he turned to go. But the 
screaming overhead made her blood run cold. She 
could endure the roar of the seventy-fives, the rattle 
of musketry, even the wild yelling of the men; but this 
cruel frenzy of the gaily-dressed women upon the 
house-tops, never tiring whilst daylight lasted, shocked 
her as something obscene, the screaming of offal-birds, 
not women, a thing not so much unnatural as an accu¬ 
sation against nature and the God that made nature. 
She quickly called her lover back. 

“Paul, you took my little pistol from the drawer of 
my table there last night.” 


198 


The Winding Stair 

“Well?” said Paul, looking at her in doubt. 

“I want you to give it back to me.” 

Paul Ravenel hesitated. 

“You need not fear,” she continued. “Yesterday I 
meant to use it—for your dear sake as I thought—or 
rather for both our sakes. But since you will keep me 
with you—why, all that’s over and I shall not use it un¬ 
less there is real need. Listen!” 

She lifted her hand and, as she listened, shuddered. 
“You spoke of those women this morning. What they 
would do to me. I should feel—safe if you would give 
my pistol back to me.” 

Paul took it from his belt and laid it on the flat of 
her hand. 

“Thank you,” she said, with a sigh of relief. She 
sat on the edge of the bed, her hair tumbled about her 
shoulders, smiling at this little weapon which could 
make death swift and easy, like a child delighted with 
a new toy. 

Things which make the flesh crawl and the spirit 
shudder have sometimes a curious and dreadful fas¬ 
cination. All through their luncheon these strident 
cries called to Marguerite, drew her like some morbid 
vice. She wanted to creep up on to the roof, to crouch 
behind the parapet, though she knew that her heart 
would miss its beats and her senses reel on the edge of 
terror. And when Paul Ravenel said: 

“Marguerite, I shall lie down on my bed and sleep 
when we have finished,” she realized that it was her 
own wish which he was uttering. She was almost dis¬ 
appointed when he lit a cigar. A cigarette, yes; but a 
cigar! That needs a deal of smoking. “You’ll wake 
me if there’s need,” said Paul. “I think that I shall 
sleep soundly.” 


The Outcasts 199 

Marguerite noticed the heaviness of his eyelids, and 
was filled with compunction. 

“If I must,” she answered, determining that what¬ 
ever happened he who had hardly slept at all for fifty 
hours should sleep his sleep out now. 

Yet within an hour she had waked him. 

Hardly, indeed, had Paul’s eyes closed before she 
climbed to the roof. The terraces of the houses were a 
very kaleidoscope of shifting colours. Orange, scarlet, 
deep waistbelts of cloth of gold over dresses of purple 
and blue and pink were grouped in clusters here like 
flower beds. There the women moved in and out with 
frantic gestures like revellers in Bedlam. And over all 
the shrill vibrant paean like a canopy! 

Marguerite watched and listened, shivering—until 
one house caught and riveted her eyes. Beneath her 
flowed the Karouein river. The farther bank was 
lined with the walls of houses, and about one, a little to 
Marguerite’s right, there was suddenly a great commo¬ 
tion. Marguerite lifted her head cautiously above the 
parapet and looked down. A narrow path ran between 
the houses and the stream, and this path was suddenly 
crowded with men as though they had sprung from the 
earth. They beat upon the door, they fired senselessly 
at the blind mud walls with rifles, they shouted for ad¬ 
mittance. And the roof of that one house was empty. 
Marguerite was suddenly aware of it. It was the only 
empty roof in all that row of houses. 

The shouts from the path were redoubled. Orders 
to open became screams of exultation, threats of ven¬ 
geance. Marguerite, looking down from her high van¬ 
tage point, saw the men upon the pathway busy' like 
ants. A group of them clustered suddenly. They 
seemed to stoop, to lengthen themselves into line—and 


200 


The Winding Stair 

now she saw what they were lifting. A' huge square 
long beam of wood—a battering ram? Yes, a batter¬ 
ing ram. Three times the beam was swung against the 
door to the tune of some monotonous rhythm of the 
East, which breathed of deserts and strange temples 
and abiding wistfulness, curiously out of keeping with 
the grim violence which was used. At the fourth blow 
the door burst and broke. It was as though a river 
dam had broken and a river torrent leapt in a solid 
shaft through the breach. 

For a few moments thereafter nothing was seen by 
Marguerite. The walls of the house were a curtain be¬ 
tween her and the tragic stage. She could only imagine 
the overturning of furniture, the pillage of rooms a 
moment since clean and orderly, now a dirty wreckage, 
a pandemonium of a search—and then the empty roof 
was no longer empty. A man sprang out upon it, a 
man wearing the uniform of a French officer. He had 
been bolted like a rat by dogs. 

Clearly his enemies were upon his heels. Marguerite 
saw him spring over the parapet on to the adjoining 
roof and a cloud of women assail him. Somehow he 
threw them off, somehow he dived and dodged between 
them, somehow he reached the further parapet, found 
a ladder propped against the outside wall, and slid 
down it on to a third house-top. And as he reached 
the flat terrace, yet another swarm of screaming terma¬ 
gants enveloped him. He was borne down to the floor 
of the room. 

For a little while there was a wild tossing of arms, 
a confusion of bodies. It seemed to Marguerite as 
though all these women had suddenly melted into one 
fabulous monster. Then, with shrieks of joy and flut- 
terings of scarves and handkerchiefs, they stood apart, 


The Outcasts 


201 


dancing flatly on their feet. The officer for his part 
lay inert and for the best of reasons; he was bound 
hand and foot. . . . And shortly afterwards the 
women lighted a fire. . . . 

“A fire?” said Marguerite, in a perplexity. “Why 
a fire?” 

She watched—and then she heard the dreadful loud 
moan of a man in the extremity of pain. In a moment 
she was shaking Paul Ravenel by the shoulder, her face 
white and quivering, her eyes still looking out in horror 
upon a world incredible. 

“Paul! Paul! Wake up!” 

Ravenel came slowly out of a deep sleep, with a 
thought that once more the insurgents were about his 
door. But a few stammering words from Marguerite 
brought him quickly to his feet. He unlocked a cup¬ 
board and took from it a carbine in a canvas case. He 
slipped off the case and fitted a charged magazine be¬ 
neath the breech. 

“You will wait here, Marguerite.” 

Whilst he was speaking he was already on the stair. 
Marguerite could not wait below as he had bidden her. 
This horror must end. She must know, of her own 
knowledge, that it had ended. She followed Paul as 
far as the mouth of the trap, and came to a stop there, 
her feet upon the stairs, her head just above the level 
of the roof. The groans of the tortured man floated 
across the open space mingled with the triumphant 
screams of the women. 

“Oh, hurry, Paul, hurry,” she cried, and she heard 
him swear horribly. 

The oath meant less than nothing to her. Would he 
never fire ? He was kneeling behind the parapet, 
crouching a little so that not a flutter of his haik 


202 The Winding Stair 

should be visible, with the barrel of his carbine resting 
upon the bricks. Why didn’t he fire? She stamped 
upon the stairs in a frenzy of impatience. She could 
not see that the women were perpetually shifting and 
crossing about their victim and obscuring him from 
Paul Ravenel. 

At last a moment came when the line of sight was 
clear; and immediately the carbine spoke—once and no 
more; and all about her in this upper city of the air all 
noises ceased, groans, exultations, everything. It was 
to Marguerite as though the crack of that carbine had 
suspended all creation. In a few seconds the shrill 
screams broke out again, but there could be no doubt 
about their character. They were screams of terror. 
These, in their turn, dwindled and ceased. Had Mar¬ 
guerite raised her head above the parapet now she 
would have seen that those terraces so lately thronged 
were empty except one on which a fire was burning, 
and where one man in a uniform lay quite still and at 
peace with a bullet through his heart. 

But Marguerite was watching Paul, who had sunk 
down below the edge of the parapet and was gazing 
upwards with startled eyes. Marguerite crept to his 
side. 

“What is it?” she whispered. 

Paul pointed. Just above their heads a tiny wisp 
of smoke coiled and writhed in the air like an adder. 

“If that were seen—” said Paul, in a low voice. 

“Yes.” 

If that tiny wisp from the smokeless powder of his 
cartridge were seen floating in the air, there would be 
no doubt from what roof the shot had been fired. Paul 
drew Marguerite down beside him; together they 
watched. There was no wind at all; the air was slug- 


The Outcasts 


203 


gish and heavy; it seemed to them that the smoke was 
going slowly to curl and weave above their heads for 
ever. It grew diaphanous, parted into fine shreds, 
tumbled, and at last was gone. 

The two lovers looked at one another with a faint 
smile upon their lips. But they did not move; they 
crouched down, seeing nothing but the empty sky above 
their heads. 

The danger was not past. At any moment the sound 
of blows upon their door might resound again through 
the house. Or they might hear a ladder grate softly 
on the outside of this parapet, as it was raised from 
one of the roofs below. They waited there for half 
an hour. Then a shell screamed above their heads and 
exploded. It was followed by another and another. 

“They are shelling the Souk-ben-Safi,” said Paul. 
“Look! You can see the twinkle of the guns.” He 
pointed out to her the flashes on the hills to the east 
of the town. “That’s the way! Let the guns talk to 
these torturers!” He shook his fist over the town, 
standing upright now upon the roof, his face aflame 
with anger. 

“Paul! Paul!” Marguerite cried in warning. 

“There’s no one to see,” he returned, with a savage 
laugh. “One shell in the Souk-ben-Safii and they’re 
shivering in their cellars. Come, let us go down!” 

For an hour the shells screeched above the roof, and 
Paul, as he cleaned his carbine, whistled joyously. He 
raised his head from his task to see Marguerite, very 
white in the face, clinging to her chair with clenched 
hands, and trying in vain to whistle too. 

“I am a brute,” he cried, in compunction. “They 
won’t touch this house, Marguerite! It’s too near the 
Karouein Mosque. The French are going to stay in 


204 The Winding Stair 

Morocco. They’ll not touch the Karouein Mosque. 
There’s no spot in Fez safer from our guns.” 

Marguerite professed herself reassured, but it did 
occur to her that gunners and even guns might make 
occasionally a mistake, and she drew a very long 
breath of relief when the bombardment ceased. 

Paul Ravenel, however, fell into a restless mood, 
pacing the court, and now and again coming to a stop 
in front of Marguerite with some word upon his lips, 
which, after all, he did not speak. Marguerite guessed 
it, and after a little struggle made herself his in¬ 
terpreter. 

“The bombardment’s over. It will keep Fez quiet 
for awhile. Even if that wisp of smoke was seen, no 
crowd will come here for an explanation—yet, at all 
events. Why don’t you go outside into the town and 
get the news?” 

The eager light in his eyes told her clearly that she 
had interpreted him aright. But Paul, not knowing 
the reason which had prompted her, sought for an¬ 
other. He looked at Marguerite warily. 

“I gave you back your pistol,” he said. 

“And I promised not to use it,” she replied. 

Paul shifted from one foot to the other, anxious for 
news, eager, after his two days’ confinement in this 
shell, for action, yet remorseful for his eagerness. 

“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said, half-heartedly. 

“But I want you to go,” she answered, with a glim¬ 
mer of a smile at this man turned shamefaced school¬ 
boy who stood in front of her. “You’re wild to go 
really, Paul, and I am in no danger.” She drew a 
swift breath as she said that and hoped that he would 
not notice it. 

Paul Ravenel did not. 



The Outcasts 205 

“Yes, I am restless, Marguerite,” he said in a burst. 
“I’ll tell you why ? Do you know what I did on the 
roof? What I had to do?” 

“You frightened the women away—shot one of 
them—put an end to their fiendishness.” 

Paul shook his head. 

“That would have been no use, my dear. The man, 
a brother-officer of mine, would still have lain upon, 
that roof in torture and helpless. They would have 
left him there till dark and finished their work then, if 
he were still alive. Can you guess what they were 
doing? They were burning his head slowly.” 

“Oh!” 

Marguerite had a vision of herself rushing out into 
the street as only that morning she had proposed to do, 
and meeting the same fate. She covered her eyes with 
her hands. 

“I am sorry, dear. I had to tell you, because I have 
to tell you this too. I killed him.” 

Marguerite took her hands from her face and stared 
at her lover. 

“I had to,” said Paul, in a dull voice. “There was 
no other way to save him. But, of course, it”—and he 
sat down suddenly with his hands clenched together 
and his head bowed—“it troubles me dreadfully. 
Who he was I don’t know; his face was blackened with 
the fire. But he may have served with me in the 
Chaiouia—he may have marched up with me to Fez— 
we may have sat together on many nights over a camp 
fire, telling each other how clever we were—and I had 
to kill him, just as one puts a horse out of its misery.” 

“Oh, my dear,” said Marguerite. She was at his 
side with her arm about his shoulders—comforting 
him. “I didn’t understand. You could do nothing 



206 The Winding Stair 

else. And you were quick. He would be the first to 
thank you.” 

Paul took the hand that was laid upon his shoulders 
gratefully. “No, I could do nothing else,” he said. 
“But I want to move, so that I mayn’t think of it.” 

“I know,” she said. 

She made light of her own isolation in that house. 
Paul, it was plain to her, was in a dangerous mood. 
Horror at the thing which he had been forced to do, 
anger at the stroke of fate which had set him to the 
tragic choice between his passion and his duty, bitter¬ 
ness against the men in power who had refused to lis¬ 
ten, were seething within him. He was in a mood to 
run riot in a Berserk rage at a chance word, a chance 
touch, to kill and kill and kill, until he in turn was 
borne down and stamped to death. But Marguerite 
stood aside. One appeal—it would be enough if only 
her eyes looked it—and without a doubt he would stay. 
Yes, stay and remember that he had been stayed! She 
did not even bid him take care or hurry back to her. 
She called Selim and bade him stand by the outer 
door. 

Paul took a great staff in his hand and came back to 
Marguerite, and kissed her on the lips. 

“Thank you,” he said. “How you know!” 

“I pay my little price, Paul, for a very big love,” 
and as was her way, she turned off the moment of 
emotion with a light word and a laugh. “There! Run 
along, and mind you don’t get your feet wet!” 

For three hours thereafter she sat alone in the court, 
with her pistol in her hand, paying her little price; out¬ 
side the noise of a town in tumult, inside the ticking of 
a clock. And darkness came. 


The Outcasts 


207 


Marguerite had her reward. Paul Ravenel returned 
at eight o’clock, his robes covered with dust and mud, 
his body tired, but his black mood gone. He dressed 
himself after his bath in the grey suit of a European, 
and as they sat at dinner he gave Marguerite his good 
news. The back of the rebellion was broken. The 
tribes which were gathering in the South and East of 
the town had been dispersed by the artillery. 

“Moinier and his column will be here before they can 
gather again. They were the great danger, Marguerite. 
For if they had once got into Fez they would have 
looted it from end to end. Friend’s house or enemy’s 
house, Fasi or Christian, would have been all the same 
to those gentlemen.” 

The rising was premature. That had been the cause 
of its failure. The quarter of the Consulates and the 
Embassy had not been carried by storm on the first 
day. A number of the Askris who had joined the in¬ 
surgents under fear, were now returning to their duties. 
The great dignitaries of the Maghzen were in a hurry 
to protest their loyalty by returning the few wounded 
prisoners and such dead bodies of the French soldiers 
as they could collect, to the headquarters at the Hospi¬ 
tal. 

“There’s still a post very hard pressed at the Bab 
Fetouh. An effort was made to relieve it this after¬ 
noon—” Paul Ravenel broke off abruptly with a sud¬ 
den smile upon his face and a light of enjoyment in his 
eyes. “I expect that they will try now from Dar-Debi- 
bagh outside the walls. It should be easier that way,” 
he said hurriedly. 

Something had happened that afternoon of which 
he had not told Marguerite, and to which he owed his 
high spirits. Marguerite was well aware of it. She 


208 The Winding Stair 

had not a doubt that he was hiding from her some r^h 
act of which he was at once rather ashamed and very 
glad; and it amused her to note how clever he thought 
himself in concealing it from her. What had happened 
in that attempt to relieve the post at the Bab Fetouh? 
Marguerite did not ask, having a fine gift of silence. 
She had Paul back safe and sound, and the worst of 
their dangers was over. They were gay once more 
that night, looking upon it as a sort of sanctuary be¬ 
tween the dangers of the past two days and the trou¬ 
bles which awaited them in the future. 

“Shall we go up on the roof?” Marguerite asked, 
looking at the clock. 

“We will go half-way up to the roof,” replied Paul, 
and Marguerite laughed as he put out the candles. 

The next day the rebellion was over. A battalion 
from Meknes with a section of mitrailleuses marched 
in at three o’clock in the afternoon, having covered the 
sixty-five kilometres in a single stage. An order was 
given that every house which wished to avoid bombard¬ 
ment must fly the tricolour flag on the following morn¬ 
ing, and Fez was garnished as for a festival. Never 
was there so swift a change. On every housetop day¬ 
break saw the flag of France, and though the women 
thronged the terraces as yesterday, they were as silent 
as the bricks of their parapets. By a curious chance 
the pall of sullen rain-charged clouds, which for four 
days had hung low, was on this morning rolled away, 
and the city shimmered to the sun. 

Paul and Marguerite watched the strange spectacle, 
hidden behind their roof wall; and their thoughts were 
busy with the same question: 

“What of us now—the outcasts?” 

Paul looked across the city to Fez Djedid and the 


The Outcasts 


209 


East. From that quarter General Moinier’s column 
was advancing. One day—two days perhaps—three 
days at the most, and it would be here at the Bab 
Segma. There was little time! 

He turned to find Marguerite’s eyes swimming in 
tears. 

“Paul, can nothing be done to give you back your 
own place?” 

“Nothing, Marguerite. Let us face it frankly! I 
went to Headquarters and warned them. Therefore 
I knew the danger. All the more, therefore, my place 
that night was with my company. Nothing can get 
over that.” 

Marguerite with a sob buried her face in her hands. 

“What I have cost you, Paul!” 

“What you have given me, Marguerite!” he replied, 
and fell into a silence. When he spoke to her again he 
spoke with his eyes averted from her face, lest she 
should read more than he meant her to in his. 

“Of course, Marguerite, you have done no wrong. 
. . . We have got to consider that, my dear. Ther£ 
isn’t really any reason why you should pay too. You 
wanted to take the risk. . . .” 

“The certainty, Paul, as it turned out. I should not 
be in the sunshine on this roof now if you had listened 
to me,” she interrupted; but Paul was not to be led 
aside. 

“What I mean is that you are not responsible. I 
am, I alone. Therefore, there’s no reason why you 
should cut yourself off from all the things which make 
life lovely,” he continued. “For it means that, my 
dear. All the things which make life lovely will go.” 

“Except one,” said Marguerite, quietly, “and that 
one outweighs all the rest.” 


210 


The Winding Stair 

Still Paul would not turn to her. 

“Think well, Marguerite!” and he spoke without stir¬ 
ring, in a level, toneless voice, so that no spark of his 
desire might kindle her to a sacrifice which, after days, 
monotonous and lonely, would lead her bitterly to re¬ 
gret. “Think carefully! You can travel in a little 
while to the coast. You can go home. No one can 
gainsay you. You will not be poor any more. In a 
few years you will be able to look back upon all this as 
a dream. . . .” 

“Don’t, Paul!” she said, in a low voice. “You hurt 
me. You make me ashamed. How could I go home 
and live, leaving you here?” 

But what hurt and shamed her most, she could not 
tell him. It was the knowledge that this hero of hers, 
this—her man who could do no wrong, had done such 
wrong for her that he was now an outcast who must 
dodge and duck his head, and slink unrecognized in the 
shadows. Her pain, however, was evident enough in 
the quiver of her voice and the tight clasp of her hand 
upon his arm. 

“Look at me, Paul!” 

She waited until he had turned, and her great eyes, 
dewy and tender, rested upon his. 

“Where you go, I go. That was settled for us at 
the Villa Iris on the night we met, perhaps even before 
that.” 

Paul argued no more. He was kneeling in front of 
her upon a cushion. He took her two hands, and, lift¬ 
ing them, he bowed his head and pressed the palms 
against his face. 

“Then let us go down and make our plans,” he said. 
For what we do, we must do very quickly.” 

His urgency startled her. 


The Outcasts 


211 


“But this house is not known. We are safe here!” 

Paul glanced again towards the east. He had the 
look of the hunted. 

“There’s a man drawing nearer to us every minute 
who will rake through Fez with a fine-tooth comb to 
find out what has become of me,” he said. 

“An enemy?” Marguerite asked, in dismay. 

“No; my friend, Gerard de Montignac. He is on 
Moinier’s staff.” 

“But he will remain your friend,” cried Marguerite, 
“even if he—” 

Paul Ravenel completed the sentence for her. 

“Discovers that I deserted. Not he! Perhaps, just 
because he was my friend, he would be harder than 
any other.” 

Underneath the good-fellowship, the fun, the de¬ 
light in the gaieties and ornaments of life, Gerard de 
Montignac had all the hard practical logic of the French 
character. Certain things are not permissible. For 
those who do them there is a law, and that is the end of 
the matter. And at the very head of the things that 
are not permissible is the tampering with the military 
oath. 

“Friendship will lead Gerard to search for me in 
every corner,” said Paul. That was the danger. For 
if Gerard stumbled upon the truth in his search, the 
friend would turn straightway into the hunter. 

Paul followed Marguerite down the stairs, and they 
talked earnestly for a long while. Then Paul arranged 
his haik about his turban, slipped his djellaba of wool 
over his linen caftan, and, going out, was very busy in 
Fez all that day. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Captain Laguessiere’s Report 

O N the twenty-first of April, three days later, 
Gerard de Montignac rode into Fez at ten 
o’clock of the morning behind General Moinier. 
He was lodged at the Auvert Hospital and as he came 
out of his room he passed in the corridor a face which 
he remembered. He turned on the instant. 

“Baumann!” 

Baumann was that short stockish Alsatian belonging 
to the Department of Native Affairs, whom Gerard 
many months before had sought at the Villa Iris. He 
shook Gerard’s hand with deferential warmth. 
“Captain de Montignac! How can I serve you?” 
The sight of Gerard always made Baumann think of 
the Bois de Bologne and brought to his nostrils a smell 
of Paris. “Stylish” was Baumann’s epithet for this 
slim razor-like being. 

“You can tell me for a second time how it goes with 
my grand serieux, and where he is to be found.” 

Baumann was enchanted by the familiar allusion. 
It made him out as an intimate of Captain de Mon¬ 
tignac. But he was baffled too. 

“The name would help,” he said, hesitating. 

“Oh, Paul Ravenel, of course,” replied Gerard im¬ 
patiently, and Baumann’s face lengthened. He fidgeted 
uncomfortably on his feet. Yes, Paul Ravenel, to be 
sure! Captain de Montignac had been uneasy about 

Paul Ravenel in Casablanca, when there was really no 

212 


Captain Laguessiere’s Report 213 

occasion for uneasiness. This time, however, the case 
was very different. 

“Alas, my Captain, I can give you no news of your 
friend at all. Many officers were caught at a disad¬ 
vantage. We are afraid—yes, we are all very much 
afraid.” 

Gerard, with his legs apart and his hands thrust into 
the pockets of his riding-breeches, looked at his twitter¬ 
ing companion for a moment. Then he said abruptly: 

“Let me hear!” 

Baumann had an uncomfortable little story to tell. 
Late on the night of the sixteenth, the night before the 
massacres openly began, Captain Ravenel had ridden 
up to the door of the hospital with a native servant 
carrying a lantern in front of him. He was labouring 
under a great anxiety and distress. Baumann himself 
received Captain Ravenel and heard his story. Cap¬ 
tain Ravenel had assured him that the Askris would re¬ 
volt immediately, and that there would be a massacre 
of the white people throughout the city. 

“And you didn’t believe Paul Ravenel?” thundered 
Gerard de Montignac. Baumann was in a haste to 
exculpate himself. 

“I waked up the two Intelligence Officers, Colonel 
Renaud and Captain Brouarre,” he said. “They came 
down in their pyjamas. We went into the room on 
the right of the entrance here, and the Captain told us 
all again many bad things which have since been ful¬ 
filled.” 

“And you wouldn’t believe Paul Ravenel!” Gerard 
looked at Baumann with a bitter amazement. “He 
gave you the warning, he, the wise one, and you 
thought he was exaggerating like some panic-stricken 
rich Fasi.” 


214 The Winding Stair 

“We hoped he was exaggerating/’ said the unhappy 
Baumann. “You see, our hands were tied. Reports 
that disturbances were likely had gone to the Embassy 
before and had been not very civilly received. It was 
an order that no similar reports should be presented. 
It was late at night. We could do nothing.” 

Gerard could read into the halting sentences all that 
Baumann was not the man to say. 

“Well?” he asked, curtly. “What of Paul?” 

Paul, very disappointed, had mounted his horse 
again and ridden off to the Bab Segma on his way to 
the camp at Dar-Debibagh. 

“But he never reached the camp. He has not been 
seen since. We are all very much afraid.” 

It was quite clear that Baumann had no hope at all 
that Paul Ravenel would ever be seen again. 

“Most of our people scattered through Fez have 
been accounted for,” he added. “Many were rescued 
and brought here to safety. The bodies of others, too, 
but not of all. There has been no means of making 
enquiries.” 

“That of course I understand,” said Gerard de Mon- 
tignac, as he turned sorrowfully away. 

Gerard was a monarchist. Some day the French 
would have a king again, when there was a claimant 
worth his salt. Meanwhile he was heart and soul for 
France, whatever its regime. So his first grief now 
was for the loss to France of the great soldier that was 
surely to be—nay, that was already beginning to be. 
He had lost a good comrade and friend too. These 
losses must be paid for—as soon as there was leisure 
to exact payment—and paid for in full. 

Meanwhile he went about his work. On the twenty- 
second the troops occupied the city. The two following 


Captain Laguessiere’s Report 215 

days were taken up in the disarmament of the popula¬ 
tion. Yet other two days were given to pleadings and 
arguments and exhortations to Paris and the Civil Au¬ 
thorities for permission to declare a state of siege. 
Only when this permission was reluctantly granted and 
the order made, could any of the General’s staff unbut¬ 
ton their tunics and give a little time to their own af¬ 
fairs. 

Gerard’s first move was to ride out to the camp at 
Dar-Debibagh, whither Paul’s battalion of tirailleurs 
had now returned. There he found the little Praslin 
now in command of Paul’s company, and the little 
Pr&slin had information of importance to give to him. 

“Captain Ravenel rode back with me to the camp 
from the Sultan’s Palace on the evening of the six¬ 
teenth, after the great storm,” said Praslin. “He was 
very glad that the storm had delayed for three days the 
departure of the Mission.” 

“He knew already, then, that afternoon, that the 
massacres were coming!” said Gerard. 

“No! I should say not. He was quite frank about 
the whole position of affairs here, as he saw it. If he 
had imagined that Fez itself was going to rise he would 
have said so, I am sure. What he did believe was that 
a serious attack would be made upon the Mission out 
in the bled, on its way to the coast.” 

“He was afraid that the escort was not strong 
enough?” 

“He certainly thought that,” replied Praslin, slowly, 
and in a voice which suggested that he did not consider 
this explanation at all adequate to explain Paul’s satis¬ 
faction at the postponement of the march. “But fear 
doesn’t enter into the matter at all. There was some¬ 
thing more. I got the impression that he just hated 


216 


The Winding Stair 

the idea of going down to the coast if only for a few 
weeks. He wanted to stay on here in Fez. An attack 
on the line of march! That he would have considered 
as in the day’s work. No. He didn’t want to leave 
Fez. Curious! Wasn’t it?” 

Gerard glanced sharply at Lieutenant Praslin. 

“Oho!” he exclaimed, softly. “Curious ? Yes! 
But then Paul Ravenel was never like the rest of 
us.” 

He remained silent for a little while, turning some 
quite new thought over and over uneasily in his mind. 

“Well?” he said, waking up again. 

“After we had returned here, he changed into a dry 
uniform, for we were both wet through, and told me 
that he was going to dine with a friend in Fez,” Praslin 
resumed. “I reminded him that there was a battalion 
parade at six the next morning.” 

“Yes?” 

“He answered that he had not forgotten and rode 
off.” 

“And that was the last you heard of him?” asked 
Gerard de Montignac. 

“No!” 

“Oh?” 

“It was the last I saw of him,” Praslin corrected. 

“What do you mean?” asked Gerard de Montignac. 

“Five minutes after Captain Ravenel had gone, a 
native came to the camp and asked for him. He car¬ 
ried a letter.” 

Gerard’s face lit up. 

“A letter? What became of it?” 

“It was taken by Captain Ravenel’s orderly and 
placed on the table in his tent.” 

“Yes?” 


Captain Laguessiere’s Report 217 

“The next morning I saw it there and took charge 
of it. It was addressed in Arabic.” 

“You have got it still?” 

“Yes!” 

“Let me see it!” 

Gerard reminded the little Praslin of some lean 
sharp-nosed pointer which somewhere in the stubble 
has picked up a scent. Praslin led him to his tent, un¬ 
locked a leather satchel and tipped out a number of let¬ 
ters on to his bed. 

“Here it is!” 

He handed a paper, not an envelope, folded and 
sealed and superscribed in Arabic characters, to Gerard. 
Gerard almost snatched at it. But once he had it in 
his hands, he was no longer so sure. He twiddled it 
between his fingers and gingerly. He sat down in 
Praslin’s camp chair and looked at Praslin and looked 
at the letter. He seemed to be afraid of what he might 
read in it. Finally, in a burst, he cried: 

“I shall open it.” 

“But of course,” said the little Praslin. 

Gerard broke the seal and read. Praslin wondered 
what he had dreaded to find written upon that paper, 
so evident was his relief now. It was the letter from 
Si El Hadj Arrifa which had just missed Paul Ra- 
venel on the night of the sixteenth. It began with the 
usual flowery protestations and ended with an apolo¬ 
getic request that Paul should not come into Fez that 
night. 

“This makes everything easier,” said Gerard, spring¬ 
ing up from his chair. “I shall keep this letter, Pras¬ 
lin.” 

He returned with it in his pocket and at once made 
inquiries as to what was known of Si El Hadj Arrifa. 


218 


The Winding Stair 

The warning on the face of it was a sign of goodwill 
to France. Yes, but some of these Fasi were very foxy 
people. This letter arriving at the camp just too late to 
save Paul Ravenel’s life, but in heaps of time to estab¬ 
lish Si El Hadj Arrifa’s good name for loyalty, might 
easily have been despatched with those two objects. It 
was all quite in keeping with the sly furtive character 
of the men of Fez. However, Gerard was soon satis¬ 
fied on that point. Si El Hadj Arrifa was of the real 
friends. Gerard accordingly knocked upon his door 
that very night. 

He was received with much ceremony and a great 
warmth of welcome; not to-be wondered at, since the 
Moor had been sitting cowering behind his stoutly- 
barred door ever since the night of the sixteenth. Ger¬ 
ard made haste to put the timid man at his ease. 

“All the weapons have been collected. All the gates 
are held by armed posts. A state of siege is proclaimed 
so that violence can be dealt with sternly and at once,” 
he said. But even then he must not put the questions 
burning on his tongue. France was to remain in 
Morocco. Very well! Then even in small things must 
the ways of the country be respected. Gerard had the 
patience which is the kernel and centre of good man¬ 
ners. He sat through the five brewings of green tea, 
ceremoniously conversing. Only then did he come to 
the reason of his visit. 

“It has been my good fortune, O, Si El Hadj Arrifa, 
to bring you excellent news to-night. Would that I 
could hear news as excellent from you! My friend 
and your friend, Captain Ravenel, dined with you one 
night and rode away from your door, and that night 
he disappeared.” 

Si El Hadj Arrifa struck a bell which stood by his 


Captain Laguessiere’s Report 219 

side and spoke a word to the negress who answered it. 
He turned again to Gerard. 

‘‘I have sent for my servant Mohammed, who car¬ 
ried the lantern in front of His Excellency’s horse. 
He shall tell you the story with his own lips.” 

Mohammed duly appeared and told the truth—with 
omissions; how the Captain had fallen behind in the 
tunnel, how the startled horse had dashed past him, 
how he had returned and found no sign of the Captain 
at all, how two men had appeared and he had fled in a 
panic. But there was no mention of any small door 
in the angle of the wall. 

“We will look at that tunnel by daylight,” said Ger¬ 
ard, when the man had finished, “if, O, Si El Hadj Ar- 
rifa, you will lend me your servant.” 

He spoke dispiritedly. There seemed very little 
chance that he would find any trace of his grand 
serieux. He had been and he was not. No doubt these 
two men at the mouth of the tunnnel had seen their 
opportunity and seized it. Paul Ravenel had been the 
first victim of the massacre, no doubt. Yet Paul—to 
be taken unawares—with Si El Hadj Arrifa’s earnest 
invitation to remain sheltered in his house only within 
this hour uttered—Paul, in a word, warned! That 
was not like the Paul Ravenel he knew, at all! And on 
the next morning, following Paul’s route with Mo¬ 
hammed for a guide, and a patrol of soldiers, he dis¬ 
covered the little door. 

With a thrill of excitement he ran his hands over 
the heavy nails. 

“Open! Open!” he cried, beating upon the panel 
with his fists; and pressing his ear against it after¬ 
wards, he heard the racket echo emptily through the 
house. 


220 


The Winding Stair 

“Open! Open!” he cried again, and, turning to 
the sergeant of the patrol, bade him find a heavy beam. 
Even with that used as a battering ram it took the 
patrol a good half hour to smash in the little door, so 
stout it was, so strong the bolts and bars. But the 
work was done at last. Gerard darted in and found 
himself in a house, small but exquisite in its decora¬ 
tions, its thick cushions of linen worked with the old 
silk embroideries of Fez, its white-tiled floors spread 
with carpets of the old Rabat patterns. But from roof 
to court the house was empty. 

Gerard went through every room with the keen eye 
of a possible tenant with an order to view; and found 
precisely nothing. Had he come a week ago, he would 
have discovered on the upper floors furniture of a com¬ 
pletely European make. All that, however, was safely 
lodged now in a storehouse belonging to Si El Hadj 
Arrifa, and the upper floors were almost bare. Gerard 
had left the patio to the last, and whilst he stepped 
here and there he heard a tinkling sound very familiar 
to his ears. 

“What’s that?” he cried, swinging round. 

In a corner of an alcove the sergeant was bending 
down. 

“What’s that, Beaupre?” Gerard cried again, and 
the sergeant stood up and faced him. He was holding 
in his hands the blue tunic of an officer; and on the 
breast of it a row of the big French medals tinkled and 
glinted. 

Gerard took the tunic reverently from the sergeant’s 
hands. It was all cluttered with blood, and stabbed 
through and through. It had the badges of Paul’s 
rank, and still discernible on a linen label inside the 


Captain Laguessiere’s Report 221 

collar was Paul’s name. It was here, then, in this house, 
that Paul Ravenel had been done to death. The tunic 
which Gerard held in his hand was the conclusive 
proof. He stood in the centre of the patio, so pleasant, 
so quiet now, with the shafts of bright sunlight break¬ 
ing upon the tiles. Who had lived here ? What dread¬ 
ful scene had been staged in this empty house ? Gerard 
shivered a little as he thought upon it. The knives at 
their slow work—the man, his friend, slowly losing, 
whilst the heart still beat and the nerves stabbed, all 
the semblance of a man! 

“But they shall pay,” he said aloud, in a bellowing 
voice; and while he shouted, a perplexity began to 
trouble him. He opened the door leading from the 
court into the outer passage. This passage was cum¬ 
bered with the splintered panels, the bolts, the heavy 
transverse bars which the patrol’s battering ram had de¬ 
molished. How was it that in this empty house the 
door was still barricaded from within? He returned 
into the court and saw that the sergeant had pushed 
aside a screen at the back, and in a recess had discov¬ 
ered a second door. This door was merely locked, 
and there was no key in the lock. It was quickly 
opened. The Karouein river raced and foamed amidst 
its boulders, and between the river and the house wall 
there ran a tiny path. 

Gerard crossed to the door. 

“Yes, that way they went. When, I wonder? Per¬ 
haps when we were actually beating on the door.” 

He unpinned the medals from his friend’s blood¬ 
stained tunic and wrapped them up in a handkerchief. 
There might be somewhere a woman who would love 
to keep them bright. Paul Ravenel talked little 


222 


The Winding Stair 

about his own affairs. Who could tell? If there were 
no one, he could treasure them himself in memory of 
a good comrade. 

Meanwhile there was an immediate step to take. A 
crowd had gathered in the gateway and about the door 
in the dark tunnel. 

“Whose is this house ?” Gerard asked, and there 
were many voices raised at once with the answer: 

“Si Ahmed Driss of Ouezzan.” 

Gerard de Montignac was taken aback by the an¬ 
swer. Si Ahmed Driss was one of the great Shereefian 
family of Ouezzan, which exercised an authority and 
a power quite independent of the Sultan. From the 
first, moreover, it had been unswervingly loyal to the 
French. Si Ahmed Driss himself during the days of 
massacre had given shelter in the sanctuary of his own 
residence to all the Europeans whom he could reach. 
Gerard de Montignac went straight now to where he 
lived in the Tala and begged an audience. 

“I have broken into a house which I now learn be¬ 
longs to you, Si Ahmed Driss, whom may God pre¬ 
serve,” he said. 

Si Ahmed Driss was a tall, dignified old gentleman 
with a white beard flowing over his chest. 

“It is forgiven,” he said, gently. “In these days 
many strange things are done.” 

“Yet this was not done without reason,” Gerard pro¬ 
tested, and he told Si Ahmed Driss of the finding of 
the tunic and the story of Mohammed the servant. 

Si Ahmed Driss bowed his head. 

“That this should have happened in my house puts 
me to shame,” he said. “I let it many months ago to 
Ben Sedira—a man of Meknes whom . . .” and a flow 


Captain Laguessiere’s Report 223 

of wondrous curses was invoked upon Ben Sedira him¬ 
self and his ancestors and descendants to the remotest 
degrees of consanguinity, by the patriarch. A bargee, 
could he but have understood, would have listened to 
them in awe and withdrawn from competition. The 
old gentleman, however, in uttering them lost none of 
his dignity. 

“Ben Sedira of Meknes,” Gerard repeated. “We 
will see if we can find that man.” 

But he had very little hope of succeeding. There 
had been two clear days between the end of the revolt 
and the arrival of Moinier’s column, during which 
surveillance could not be exercised. There were not 
sufficient French soldiers to hold the town gates and 
question all who went in and out. The moment the 
French tricolours floated so gaily upon all the house¬ 
tops of Fez, Ben Sedira would have known the game 
was up. He would have gone and gone quickly; nor 
would Meknes in the future house any one of his name. 

Thus, Gerard de Montignac reasoned, the affair 
would remain a mystery. Official enquiries would be 
made. But the great wheels of Administration could 
not halt for ever at the little door in the roofed alley. 
Paul Ravenel would become a case, one of the infinite 
enigmas of Mohammedan Africa. So he thought dur¬ 
ing the next fortnight. 

But Gerard was on General Moinier’s staff, and 
many reports came under his eyes. Amongst them, one 
written by a Captain Laguessiere, giving an account of 
an unsuccessful attempt to relieve a little post at the 
Bab Fetouh on the afternoon of the seventeenth, the 
second day of the revolt. Gerard was reading the report 
in his office not overcare fully when a passage leaped out 


224 


The Winding Stair 

on the written page and startled him. He sat for a 
moment very still. Then he shook or tried to shake 
some troublesome thought from his shoulders. 

“It couldn’t be, of course!” he said, but he read the 
passage again. 

And here is what he read: 

“I met with no trouble until I had passed the lime¬ 
kilns and crossed a bridge over the Oued el Kebir. 
Here further progress was stopped by three strong 
groups of Moors armed with rifles. It was clear to me 
that I could not force a way through with my twenty 
men and retain any hope of relieving the post. I de¬ 
termined, therefore, to make a detour and try to ad¬ 
vance by way of the Bab Jedid. As I recrossed the 
bridge I was violently attacked from the rear, from in 
front of me and from a street upon my left; whilst 
from a house upon my right I saw a number of the 
Askris pour out. I ordered a charge, and, leading f au 
pas gymnastique / I brought my men into a narrow 
turning, whence we were able to clear the street by re¬ 
peated volleys. I had two men killed and six wounded. 
I received great assistance from a tall Moor who, jump¬ 
ing from the crowd, charged with my men. He was 
armed only with a big heavy pole, but he swung it about 
him with so much vigour and skill that he cleared a 
space for us. I tried to find this Moor when I had 
re-formed my men, but he had disappeared as suddenly 
as he had come.” 

Gerard de Montignac sat back in his chair and ran 
his fingers through his sleek hair. 

“Of course, it’s quite out of the question,” he as¬ 
sured himself. But none the less he rose abruptly and, 
leaving the report on his desk, went into another office 
inconveniently crowded. At the far end of the room 


Captain Laguessiere’s Report 225 

was seated at a desk the man for whom he was look¬ 
ing. 

“Baumann!” he called. “Can you spare me a min¬ 
ute ?” 

Baumann rose and followed Gerard back to his 
room. 

“Take a chair there.” He pointed to one at the side 
of his desk. 

“Do you remember telling me some time ago at 
Casablanca that you once met Captain Ravenel close 
to Volubilis ?” 

“Yes,” said Baumann. “I didn’t recognise him. 
He twirled a great staff round his head and frightened, 
me out of my life.” 

“Yes, that’s it,” said Gerard. “A little thing in one 
of these reports reminded me of your story. I wanted 
to be sure of it. Thank you.” 

Baumann rose to go and stopped with his hand upon 
the door-knob. 

“A great loss, Captain Ravenel. There is no news 
of him, I suppose?” 

Gerard shook his head. 

“None.” 

“Is it known whom he dined with that last night he 
was seen?” 

“Yes. Si El Hadj Arrifa.” 

Baumann nodded. 

“Si El Hadj Arrifa was one of Captain Ravenel’s 
closest friends in Fez. But there’s another closer still 
of whom you might enquire.” 

“I will. Give me his name,” said Gerard eagerly, 
and he drew a slip of paper towards him. 

But he did not write upon it. For Baumann an¬ 
swered : “Si Ahmed Driss.” 


226 The Winding Stair 

Gerard dropped his pencil and looked swiftly up. 

“Of the Sheereefs of Ouezzan?” 

“Yes.” 

“You are sure?” 

“Quite.” 

Gerard set his elbows on the arms of his chair and 
joined his hands under his chin. 

“So Paul was a great friend of Si Ahmed Driss, was 
he?” he said ever so softly. 

“Yes. It was as a servant in the train of Si Ahmed 
Driss of Ouezzan that Captain Ravenel travelled 
through the Zarhoun country, and visited the Holy 
Cities.” 

“I see. Thank you, Baumann.” 

Gerard de Montignac was swimming in deep waters. 
He was not imaginative but he had imagination. 
He comprehended, though he did not feel, the call and 
glamour of the East; and nowhere in the world is there 
a land more vividly Eastern in its spirit, its walled ci¬ 
ties, its nomad tribes, and its wide spaces, than this 
northwestern corner of Africa. Gerard had lived long 
enough in it to see men yield to it, as to a drug, for¬ 
sake for it all that is lovely and of good repute. Was 
this what had happened to his friend? He wondered 
sorrowfully. Paul was friendly, cheerful, gay, but 
none the less really and truly a man of terrific loneli¬ 
ness. Walled about always. Gerard tried to think 
of an intimate confidence which Paul had ever made 
him. He could not remember one. He was the very 
man to whom the strange roads might call with the 
voices of the Sirens. It might be ... it might be. 
Gerard de Montignac never sought again for traces of 
his lost friend. He left the search to the Administra¬ 
tion and the Administration had other work to do. 


CHAPTER XIX 


In the Sacred City 

f I ^HE sharp lesson, then the goodwill; and al¬ 
ways even during the infliction of the lesson, 
fair dealing between man and man, and noth¬ 
ing taken without payment on the spot. This, the tradi¬ 
tional policy of the great French Governors, was carried 
out in Fez. Only the lesson was not so sharp as many 
thought it should have been. But the policy achieved 
its end, and it was not long before many a Fasi, like 
his kinsmen of the Chaiouia, would proudly assure you 
that he was a Frenchman. The work of settlement and 
order could be transferred to other regions, and Ger¬ 
ard de Montignac went with it. He served in the 
mountains about Taza during the autumn of that year, 
and then went upon long leave. He was in Paris for 
Christmas, and there, amidst its almost forgotten lights 
and brilliancies, took his pleasures like a boy. He 
hunted in the Landes, returned to Morocco, and a year 
later, after a campaign in the country south of Mar- 
rakesch, got his step and the command of his battalion. 

For three months afterwards he was stationed at 
Meknes and drew his breath. He had the routine of 
his work to occupy his mornings, and in this city of 
wide spaces and orchards to engross his afternoons. 
Meknes with the ruined magnificence of its palaces of 
dead kings, its huge crumbling stables, the great gate 
of mosaic built through so many years by so many 

captives of the Sallee pirates, and so many English 

227 



228 The Winding Stair 

prisoners from Tangier; that other gate hardly less 
beautiful to the north of the town; its groves of olives; 
its long crumbling crenellated walls reaching out for 
miles into the country with no reason, and with no 
reason abruptly ending—Meknes satisfied the aesthetic 
side of him as no other city in that enchanted country. 
He delighted in it as a woman in her jewels. 

But in the autumn the Zarhoun threatened trouble 
for the hundredth time—the Zarhoun, that savage 
mountain mass with its sacred cities which frowns 
above the track from Meknes to Rabat and through 
which the narrow path from Tangier to Fez is cleft. 
It was decided that the sacred cities must at last throw 
open their gates and the Zarhoun be brought into line. 
The work was entrusted to Gerard de Montignac. 

“You will have a mixed battalion of infantry, a 
squadron of Chasseurs, a section of mitrailleuses, and 
a couple of mountain guns,” said the Commander-in- 
Chief. “But I think you will not need to use them. 
It will be a demonstration, a reconnaissance in force, 
rather than an attack.” 

Thus one morning of June, Gerard led his force 
northwards over the rolling plain, onto the higher 
ground, and marching along the flank of Djebel Zar¬ 
houn, camped that night close to the tall columns and 
broken arches of Volubilis. In front of the camp, a 
mile away, dark woods of olive trees mounted the 
lower slopes, and above them the sacred city of Mulai 
Idris clung to the mountain sides, dazzlingly white 
against the sombre hill and narrowing as it rose to an 
apex of one solitary house. In the failing light it had 
the appearance of a gigantic torrent, which, forcing it¬ 
self through a tiny cleft, spread fanwise as it fell, in a 
cascade of foam. 


229 


In the Sacred City 

There was no fighting, as the Commander-in-Chief 
had predicted. At nine o’clock the next morning the 
Basha, followed by three of his notable men, rode down 
on their mules through the olive groves, and, being led 
to the little tent over which floated the little red flag of 
the commander, made his obeisance. 

“I will go back with your Excellency into the city,” 
said Gerard, and he gave orders that a company of 
tirailleurs should escort him. 

Thus, then, an hour later they set out: Gerard riding 
ahead with the Basha upon his right, the notables be¬ 
hind, and behind them again the company of tirailleurs 
advancing in column of platoons with one Captain 
Laguessiere at their head. When they reached the first 
of the rising ground, Gerard reined in his horse and 
stared about him. 

The Basha, a portly man with a black beard, smiled 
with a flash of white teeth and the air of one expecting 
compliments. He did not get them, however. Ger¬ 
ard’s face wore, indeed, a quite unfriendly look. He 
turned round in his saddle. 

“Captain Laguessiere.” 

Laguessiere, who had halted his company, rode up 
to Gerard’s side. 

“Do you see ?” 

“Yes, my Commandant. I have been wondering for 
the last few minutes whether it was possible. If these 
fellows had put up a fight we might have lost a lot 
of men.” 

“Yes,” said Gerard, shortly. 

To the right and left of the track which led up to 
the gate of the town, very well placed, just on the first 
rise of the ground, were fire trenches. Not roughly 
scooped shallow depressions, but real trenches scien- 


230 The Winding Stair 

tifically constructed. Deep and recessed and with 
traverses at short intervals. The inside walls were 
revetted; arm rests had been cut for the riflemen, the 
earth dug from the trenches had been used for para¬ 
pets and these had been turfed over for concealment; 
there were loopholes, artfully hidden by bunches of 
grass or little bundles of branches and leaves. Com¬ 
munication trenches ran back and—nothing so struck 
Gerard de Montignac with surprise as this—the extra 
earth had been built into parapets for dummy trenches, 
so that the fire of the attacking force might be diverted 
from those which were manned. 

The surprise of the two officers caused the 
Moors the greatest satisfaction. The three notables 
. were wreathed in smiles. The Basha laughed out¬ 
right. 

“They are good,” he said, nodding his head. 

“Too good,” replied Gerard, gravely. “But it is as 
well that you did not use them against us.” 

To the Moors this rejoinder seemed the very cream 
of wit. The Basha rocked in his saddle at the mere 
idea that his trenches could have been designed against 
the French. 

“No, indeed! We are true friends of your Excel¬ 
lency and your people. We know that you are just 
and very powerful too. These trenches were intended 
to defend our sacred city from the Zemmour.” 

“Oh, the Zemmour! Of course,” exclaimed Gerard, 
openly scoffing. 

The Zemmour were turbulent and aggressive and 
marauders to a man. They lived in the Forest of 
Mamora and sallied out of it far afield. But they were 
also the bogey men of the countryside. You threat¬ 
ened your squalling baby with the Zemmour, and what- 


In the Sacred City 231 

ever bad thing you had done, you had done it in terror 
of the Zemmour. 

The Basha was undisturbed by Gerard de Montig- 
nac’s incredulity. 

“Yes, the Zemmour are very wicked people,” he said, 
smiling virtuously and apparently quite unconscious 
that he himself presided over a city of malefactors and 
cutthroats. “But now that you have taken us poor 
people under your protection we feel safe.” 

Gerard smiled grimly and Captain Laguessiere 
stroked his fair moustache and remarked: “He has a 
fine nerve, this old bandit.” 

“And when did you expect the Zemmour?” asked 
Gerard- 

“Two weeks, three weeks ago. They sent word 
that they would attack us on a certain night, so that 
we might be ready.” 

“And then they didn’t come?” said Gerard. 

“No.” 

Captain Laguessiere laughed, incredulous of the 
whole story. But Gerard recognised a simple form of 
humour thoroughly Moroccan. To warn your enemy 
that you meant to attack him, to keep him on the watch 
and thoroughly alarmed all night and then never to at¬ 
tack him at all—that might well seem to the Zemmour 
a most diverting stroke of wit. The Zemmour, after 
all, were not so very far from Zarhoun. 

“I wonder,” said Gerard., 

“I don’t, my Commandant,” replied Captain Lagues¬ 
siere. “I think that if they hadn’t seen our mountain 
guns passing up the track below, we should have found 
these trenches manned this morning.” 

Gerard turned about on his horse and looked down 
onto the plain. 


232 


The Winding Stair 

“Yes. They could see very clearly. That’s the ex¬ 
planation—so far.” 

He gave his attention once more to the construction 
of the trenches. 

“And who taught you to make those trenches, my 
friend?” Gerard asked, looking keenly at the Basha. 
The Basha answered composedly: 

“It was Allah who put it into our heads. Allah 
protecting the holy city where Mulai Idris lies 
buried.” 

“That’s all very fine,” Captain Laguessiere ob¬ 
served. “But then who lent Allah his copy of the 
Manual of Field Engineering?” 

“Exactly,” Gerard agreed with a laugh. “I think we 
had better find that out. No Moor that ever I met 
with would take the time and trouble, even if he had 

the skill, to work out-” and the laugh died off his 

lips. He turned suddenly startled eyes upon his com¬ 
panion. “Laguessiere!” he exclaimed, and again, in 
a lower key, “Yes, Laguessiere! I was sure that I had 
never met you before.” 

“Not until this expedition, my Commandant.” 

“Yet your name was familiar to me. I did not 
think why. I was too busy to think why. But I re¬ 
member now. You were in Fez two years ago. Yes, 
I remember now.” 

His face darkened and hardened and grew very 
menacing as he sat with moody eyes fixed upon the 
ground and seeing visions of old and pleasant days 
leap into life and fade. “Volubilis, too!” he said in 
a low voice. “Yes, just below those olives.” 

Strange that he should have seen the columns and 
broken arches yesterday and again this morning, and 
only thought of them with wonder as the far-flung 



233 


In the Sacred City 

monuments of the old untiring Rome! And never 
until this moment as things of great and immediate 
concern to him—signs perhaps for him to read and 
not neglect. For of all the pictures which he saw 
changing and flickering upon the ground, two came 
again and again. He saw Baumann and his friends 
riding in the springtime between clumps of asphodel 
towards those high pillars, and a horde of wild ragged 
men pouring out of the gates of this white-walled city, 
and Baumann shrinking back as a tall youth whirled 
with a grin a great staff about his head. Then he saw 
the same man, whirling the same staff, charge with 
Laguessiere’s section in a street of Fez. A grim and 
sinister fancy flashed into his mind. He wondered 
whether he had been appointed by destiny to demand 
here and to-day an account for the betrayal of a great 
and sacred trust. He looked up the hill to where the 
big wooden gates stood open. 

“Is that the only entrance into Mulai Idris?” he 
asked of the Basha. 

“The only one.” 

Gerard de Montignac turned to his subordinate. 

“You will set a guard upon that gate, Captain La- 
guessiere. No one is to go out until I give a further 
order.” 

“Very well, my Commandant.” 

“You will have the town patrolled and the walls 
watched. I will bring up another company to act with 
you.” 

He wrote an order with a pencil in his note book, 
detached the leaf, and sent it back by an orderly to the 
camp. “Now we will move on,” he said. All his good 
humour had vanished. He had no longer any jests to 
exchange with the Basha as the little cavalcade rode 


234 The Winding Stair 

upwards among the olive trees and through the steep, 
narrow streets of the town. 

In an open space just below that last big house which 
made the apex of the triangle, a seat was placed, and 
to this Gerard de Montignac was conducted. The little 
city lay spread out in a fan beneath him. The great 
Mosque in which the tomb of the Founder of the Moor¬ 
ish Empire was sheltered stood at the southern angle. 
Gerard looked down into a corner of its open precincts 
and saw men walking to and fro. He called the Basha 
to his side, and pointed down to it. 

“Yes, that is the great Mosque, your Excellency.” 

“No one will violate it. For us it is sacred as for 
you,” said Gerard. “But no food must go into it. 
That is a strict order.” 

“It shall be obeyed.” 

“I shall place men of my own in the streets about 
the entrances. They will molest no one, but they will 
see to it that the order is obeyed.” 

The Mosque was sanctuary, of course. Any man 
who took refuge there was safe. Neither the law nor 
any vengeance could touch him. But no man must die 
in it, for that would be a defilement. A little time, 
therefore, and any refugee would be thrust out by the 
guardians of the sanctuary, lest his death should taint 
the holy place. 

Gerard sent a messenger down with a new order to 
Laguessiere at the gate and waited on the seat until it 
had been carried out, and Laguessiere had ridden to his 
side. The two officers lunched with the Basha and his 
notables in the big house and drank the five cups of tea 
with them afterwards. 

“I will now ride with you through the town,” said 
Gerard to the Basha. “You shall tell me of the houses 


235 


In the Sacred City 

and of those who live in them. And you shall take me 
into those I wish, so that I may speak to them and 
assure them of our friendship.” 

“That will be an excellent thing,” replied the Basha. 

Gerard kept a sergeant and a small guard of soldiers 
with him, and with the Basha on his mule beside him 
he rode down on the left side of the town. For on 
this side only, he had seen, were there any houses of 
importance. The rest of the town was made up of 
hovels and little cottages. The three chief men who 
rode with the Basha pointed out their own residences 
with pride; the owners of others were described, and 
at each of them Gerard smiled and said he was 
content. They made thus a complete circuit of the 
city. 

“Your Excellency has not thought fit to enter any 
one of the houses,” said the Basha with a smile of 
reproach. Gerard led him a little apart. 

“I will make good that omission now,” he replied. 
“There was one which we passed. You did not speak 
of it at all. Yet it was a good house, a fine house, 
finer almost than any except your Excellency’s own.” 

The Basha was apparently mystified. He could not 
remember. 

“I think that I can find the house again,” said 
Gerard. “I hope that I shall be able to. For it at¬ 
tracted me.” He looked the Basha in the eyes. “That 
is the house which I wish to enter and whose owner 
I wish to see.” 

Finality was in Gerard’s voice as clearly as in his 
words. The Basha bowed to it. 

“It is for your Excellency to give orders here. We 
are in God’s hands,” he said, and he drew a step nearer 
to Gerard de Montignac. “It is permitted to dismiss 


236 The Winding Stair 

my friends now to their homes? Si Tayeb Reha, 
whom we shall visit, will not be prepared for so many.” 

“Si Tayeb Reha?” Gerard repeated. “That is his 
name? I had a thought it might be Ben Sedira.” 

The Basha shook his head. 

“That is not a name known in Mulai Idris.” 

He turned to his notables and took leave of them 
with ceremonious speeches. Then he mounted his mule 
again and rode down the hill beside Gerard with the 
sergeant and the escort at their heels. Gerard said not 
a word now. He was thinking of those carefully con¬ 
structed trenches outside the city, and his face grew 
hard as granite. They came to a house of two storeys 
with one latticed window in the uppermost floor, and 
for the rest a blank wall upon the street. It was for 
Fez a small house, for Mulai Idris one of importance. 
The door opened upon a side street, and the sergeant 
knocked upon it whilst Gerard and the Basha dis¬ 
mounted. There followed a long silence whilst a little 
crowd gathered about the soldiers. Gerard wondered 
what message that sharp loud knocking brought to 
the inmate. Had he seen the cavalcade ride past from 
a corner of that latticed window and with a smile upon 
his lips believed himself to be safe? What a shatter¬ 
ing blow, then, must have been this sudden knocking 
upon his door? Or was he himself altogether in error? 
Gerard drew a breath of relief at the mere hope that 
it might be so. Well, he would know now, for the 
door was opened. And in a moment all Gerard’s hopes 
fell. For the native who opened it was surprised into 
a swift movement as his eyes fell upon Gerard in his 
uniform. It was a movement which he checked before 
he had completed it, but he was too late. He had be¬ 
trayed himself. It was the involuntary movement of 


In the Sacred City 237 

an old soldier standing to attention at the sudden ap¬ 
pearance of an officer. 

The Basha spoke a few words to the servant who 
stood inside. There was no court in this house. A 
staircase faced them steeply, and on the right hand of 
it was the kitchen. Gerard turned to the servant as he 
passed in. 

“And what is your name ?” 

“Selim,” answered the servant. He led the way up 
the dark staircase. There was no window upon 
the staircase; the only light came from the door¬ 
way upon the street. At the top there was a landing 
furnished with comfort, and in the middle of the land¬ 
ing was a fine door. Selim knocked upon it, and would 
have opened it. But Gerard laid his hand upon his 
arm and with a gesture in place of words bade him 
stand aside. He opened the door himself and entered. 
He was standing in a room of low roof but wide. It 
was furnished altogether in the Moorish style, and 
with a certain elegance. But the elegance was rather in 
the disposition of the room than in the quality of its 
equipment. One great window, with a balcony pro¬ 
tected by a rail, gave light to the room; and it looked 
not upon the street but across a great chasm to the 
mountain, for the house was built upon the town 
wall. The light thus flooded the room. Close to the 
window a tall Moor was standing. He bowed and took 
a step forward. 

“Had I hoped that your Excellency would do me 
the honour to visit my poor house,” he said with a 
smile, “I should have made a better preparation.” 

He had a small beard trimmed neatly to a point and 
a thin line of moustache. Gerard did not answer him 
for a little while. He took out his note-book and wrote 


238 The Winding Stair 

t 

in it and detached the leaf. Then he sent Selim down 
the stairs to fetch up the sergeant of his escort; and it 
was noticeable that, scrupulous as he usually was in 
this land of observances, he made use of the servant 
as his messenger without troubling himself to ask the 
master’s permission. 

When the sergeant came up into the room, Gerard 
handed him the sheet of paper. 

“You will send this by one of your men immediately 
to Captain Laguessiere at the gate.” 

“Very well, my Commandant,” and the sergeant 
went out of the room. 

Gerard turned to the Basha. 

“I have sent an order to remove the posts from the 
neighbourhood of the Mosque, and to throw open the 
gates so that men may go out and in as they will.” 

The Basha expressed his thanks. There would be no 
trouble. The people of Mulai Idris were very good 
people, not like those scoundrels from the Forest of 
Mamora, and quite devoted to the French. 

“Since this morning,” Gerard answered with a smile. 
“We shall have much to say to one another to-morrow 
morning, in a spirit of help and goodwill. But I beg 
you to leave me now, so that I may talk for a little while 
privately with Si Tayeb Reha. For I have come now 
to the end of this day’s work.” 

Si Tayeb Reha bowed gravely. It was the only 
movement he had made since he had spoken his words 
of welcome upon Gerard’s first entrance into the room. 

The Basha took his leave, went downstairs and 
mounted his mule. 

“We are all in God’s hands,” he said, and he rode 
slowly away towards his house. Within the room the 
two men stood looking at each other in silence. 


CHAPTER XX 


The Coup de Grace 

T HE longer the silence grew, the more difficult 
Gerard de Montignac felt it was to break. He 
had entered the room, clothed upon with au¬ 
thority, sensible of it and prepared to demand explana¬ 
tions and exact retribution. But he had now a curious 
uneasiness. His authority seemed to be slipping from 
him. Opposite to him without a movement of his 
body and his face still as a mask, stood le grand 
serienx, as half in jest, half in earnest, he used to 
label Paul Ravenel. He had not a doubt of his iden¬ 
tity. But le grand serienx was altogether in earnest 
le grand serienx at this moment. 

A quiet, tragic figure, drawn to his full height, wear¬ 
ing his dignity with the ease of an accustomed gar¬ 
ment, when he should be—what ? Crushed under 
shame, faltering excuses, cringing! Gerard de Mon¬ 
tignac said to himself: “Why, I might be the culprit! 
It might be for me to offer an explanation, or to 
try to.” He almost wondered if he was the culprit, 
so complete was his discomfort, and so utterly he felt 
himself at a disadvantage. He whipped himself to a 
sneer. 

“I am afraid that I am not very welcome, Si Tayeb 
Reha,’” he said, speaking in French. 

“Si Tayeb Reha! Yes! That is my name,” returned 
the Moor, in the Mohgrebbin dialect of Arabic. 

“Alias Ben Sedira of Meknes. Alias Paul Ravenel.” 

239 


240 


The Winding Stair 

The Moor frowned in perplexity. 

“Alias,” he repeated, doubtfully, “and Pol Rav-” 

He gave the name up. “What are these words? If 
your Excellency would speak my language-” 

“Your language!” Gerard interrupted, roughly. 
“Since when have the outcasts a language of their 
own ?” 

He flung himself into a chair. He was not going to 
take a part in any comedy. He continued to speak in 
French. “You thought you were safe enough here, no 
doubt. Oh, it was a clever plan, I grant you. Who 
would look for Paul Ravenel in the sacred city of 
Mulai Idris? Yet not so safe, after all, if any one 
knew that you had once travelled through the Zahoun 
in the train of Si Ahmed Driss of Ouezzan.” 

He leaned forward suddenly as some prosecuting 
counsel in a criminal court might do, seeking to terrify 
a defendant into an expression or a movement of guilt. 
But Si Tayeb Reha was simply worried because he 
could not understand a word of all the scorn which 
was tumbling from Gerard’s mouth. The officer was 
angry—that was only too evident—and with him, Si 
Tayeb Reha! If only he could make it all out! Gerard 
grew more exasperated than ever. 

“No, not safe at all if any one had seen you come 
out of these gates in the rabble to drive away a visitor 
to Volubilis. Baumann, eh? Do you remember Bau¬ 
mann of the Affaires Indigenes, Paul Ravenel?” 

Si Tayeb Reha raised his hands: 

“Your Excellency speaks in a tongue I do not un¬ 
derstand.” 

“You understand very well. Sanctuary, eh? If one 
guessed you had run to earth here—sanctuary! No 
one dare violate the sacred city of Mulai Idris. Once 




The Coup de Grace 241 

sheltered within its walls, safe to lead the dreadful 
squalid life you’ve chosen right to its last mean day! 
Your mistake, Paul Ravenel! The arm of France is 
stretched over all this country.” 

Gerard stopped abruptly and flung himself back in 
his chair in disgust. He was becoming magniloquent 
now. In a minute he would be ridiculous, and over 
against him all the while stood this renegade, dwarfing 
him by his very silence, and the stillness of his body, 
putting him in the wrong—for that was it! Putting 
him in the wrong who was in the right. 

Gerard had imagination. He was hampered now 
by that accursed gift of the artist. Even whilst he 
spoke he was standing outside himself and watching 
himself speak, and act, and watching with eyes hos- 
tilely critical. Thus were things well interpreted, but 
not thus were they well done. Thus they were made 
brilliantly to live again; but not thus were they so 
contrived as to be worthy to live again. Since by that 
road come hesitations and phrases that miss their mark. 

He tried to sting Si Tayeb Reha into a rejoinder. 

“Trenches, too! Fire-trenches on the latest plan—• 
so that if by chance we should come and be fools 
enough to come without guns”—he broke off and beat 
upon the table with his closed fist—“you would fight 
France, would you, to keep your burrow secret! The 
insolence of it! The Zemmour indeed! Fire-trenches 
and traverses and the rest of it against the Zemmour.” 

Si Tayeb Reha leapt upon a word familiar to his 
tongue. 

“The Zemmour! Yes,” he cried, smiling his relief. 
Here was something which he could understand. “The 
Zemmour threatened us two, three, four weeks ago. 
We made ready to welcome them. But they did not 


242 


The Winding Stair 

come. They were very wise, the Zemmour!” and he 
chuckled and nodded. 

Gerard found this man of smiles and cunning easier 
to talk with than the aloof masked figure of a minute 
ago. 

“It was you who constructed those trenches and 
against us, who were once your comrades,” he said 
sternly. 

Si Tayeb Reha was once more at a loss. 

“If your Excellency will not speak my tongue, how 
shall I answer you ?” he asked, plaintively, and Gerard 
did not trouble to answer. 

“I ought to send you down to Meknes, for a court- 
martial to deal with you,” he said, reflectively. “But 
all strange crimes have their lures. They breed. God 
knows what decent-living youngster might get his im¬ 
agination unwholesomely stirred and do as you have 
done and bring his name to disgrace! Besides—do 
you know who guards the gate of Mulai Idris whilst I 
talk to you ? Who but Laguessiere ? Captain Lagues¬ 
siere.” He searched the still face for a tremor, a 
twitch of recognition. Si Tayeb Reha had apparently 
given up the attempt to understand. He stood leaning 
against the wall at the side of the window and looking 
out across the ravine to the mountainside. 

“Laguessiere, at whose side you charged twisting 
your staff—do you remember?—back over the bridge 
by the lime-kilns in Fez two years ago.” 

The light fell full upon the face of the man at the 
window. It seemed to Gerard de Montignac impossi¬ 
ble that any man, even the grand serieux, who had 
so often carried his life in his hands through the soli¬ 
tary places, could have learnt so to school his features 
and keep all meaning from his eyes. 


243 


The Coup de Grace 

“Yes, that charge counts for you, and something else 
which shouldn’t count at all. You and I were at St. 
Cyr together.” 

Indeed, that counted most of all. The sense of an 
old comradeship broken, the traditions of a great col¬ 
lege violated, these had been the true cause of Gerard 
de Montignac’s discomfort. The years were beginning 
to build the high barriers about Gerard, shutting off 
great tracts of which he had once had glimpses to 
make the heart leap, taking the bright colour from his 
visions. A treasure-house of good memories was 
something nowadays to value, and here was one of the 
good memories, almost the most vivid of them all, de¬ 
stroyed. He rose from his chair, and as he rose, a 
curtain moved which covered an archway, moved and 
ever so slightly parted. It was just behind Si Tayeb 
Reha’s shoulder, and a little to his right at the side of 
the room; so that he did not notice the movement. 
Gerard de Montignac could look through the narrow 
opening. He had a glimpse of a woman with her face 
veiled, an orange scarf about her head, a broad belt of 
gold brocade about her white robe. Somehow the sight 
of her helped him, though he saw her but for a second, 
before the curtains closed again. It spurred him to 
that statement which from the outset he had been work- 
ing to. 

“So that’s it!” he cried. “A woman, eh? Two 
years since she took your fancy! She must be getting 
on now, mustn’t she? What’s her age? Seventeen? 
And for that, honour, career, a decent life, all, into the 
dust-bin!” 

He drew his heavy revolver from the pouch at his 
belt and laid it on the table. 

“It is loaded,” he said. “You have just the time 


244 


The Winding Stair 

until my sergeant notices that I have left my revolver 
behind in this house. If I come back, and—no shot has 
been fired—then it is Meknes with all its shame and 
the same end.” 

Nothing surprised Gerard de Montignac more than 
the coolness with which Si Tayeb Reha, as his old com¬ 
rade called himself, received his sentence of death. He 
advanced to the table where the revolver lay and took 
the weapon up with a smile of curiosity and admira¬ 
tion. 

“We make no such weapons as these,” he said in 
Arabic, examining the pistol with all a Moor’s fas¬ 
cination for mechanical instruments. “That, your Ex¬ 
cellency, is why we are never a match for you and we 
must open our gates at your summons.” 

He had never said one word except in Arabic during 
the whole of that interview, just as Gerard had stub¬ 
bornly refused to speak anything but French. Gerard 
watched him toying with the weapon for a second and 
then turned rapidly away. He could not but admire 
his old friend’s courage; he could not but think: “What 
a waste of a good man!” He went out of the room 
without another word or another look. He was sick 
at heart. He no longer cared whether he had been 
peevish or argumentative or what kind of figure he had 
cut. One of the glamorous things in his life, his belief 
in the grand serieux, had been taken from him. 

He mounted his horse and rode away, wishing for 
that shot to explode as quickly as possible, so that he 
might bury the dreadful episode out of sight and for¬ 
get it altogether. 

But though he listened with both his ears and though 
he walked his horse as slowly as he could, he heard 
nothing. He saw his sergeant suddenly look at his 


245 


The Coup de Grace 

belt. It was coming, then, without a doubt. The next 
moment the sergeant was at his side and looking up 
into his face. 

“My commandant, you have left your revolver be¬ 
hind in that house.” 

Gerard de Montignac took all the time that he could. 
He stared at the sergeant and made him repeat his 
statement as though he had been lost in thought and 
had never heard it at all. Then he looked down at the 
holster and fingered it as if he were trying to recol¬ 
lect where in the world he had taken the revolver 
out. 

“Why, that’s true,” he said, at last. He wheeled his 
horse around and rode back very dispiritedly with his 
chin sunk upon his breast. “It is to be Meknes after 
all, then, and all the public shame,” the sergeant heard 
him mutter; and then a pistol cracked sharp and clear, 
and Gerard raised his face. It was lit with a great 
relief. 

They were only ten paces from the house. Gerard 
dismounted and gave the reins to the sergeant. 

“Wait for me here! Keep the door clear!” he or¬ 
dered. He had left the door of the house open when 
he rode away. It was open still. Gerard ran up the 
stairs and burst into the room. There was a smell of 
gunpowder in the air, and the Moorish woman with 
the orange scarf and the white robe and the deep gold 
waistband was standing with her hands pressed over 
her face. 

But there was no sign of Si Tayeb Reha anywhere. 
They had tried to trick him, then! They imagined 
that he would accept the evidence of the pistol-shot and 
continue on his way! They took him for no better 
than a child, it seemed. No, that would not do! 


246 


The Winding Stair 

“Where is he?” he asked, angrily, of the girl, and 
now he, too, spoke in Arabic. 

She pointed a trembling hand towards the window; 
and Gerard saw that the rail of the balustrade of the 
balcony was broken and that the revolver lay upon the 
boards. Gerard stepped out from the window and 
looked down. 

The balcony had been built out from the sheer wall; 
it was a rough thing of boards, supported upon iron 
stanchions, and jutting out above the deep chasm at 
the edge of the town. Gerard could see between the 
boards deep down a precipice of rocks to a tiny white 
thread of stream and clumps of bushes. He drew close 
to the broken rail and leaned cautiously over. Caught 
upon some outcropping rocks, a little way below the 
wall, hung the body of Si Tayeb Reha. He was lying 
face downwards, his arms outspread. The story of 
what had happened was written there for him to read. 

Paul Ravenel had shot himself on the balcony, the 
revolver had fallen from his hand, his body had 
crashed through the flimsy rail and toppled down until 
it had been caught on the rocks below. Yes, no doubt! 
The mere fall from that height, even if Ravenel had 
been unhurt, would have been enough. Yet—yet— 
there had been a long delay before the shot was fired. 
Gerard looked keenly and swiftly about the room. 
No, there was no sign of a rope. 

He looked at the girl. She was now crouched down 
upon her knees, her face hidden between her hands, 
her body rocking, whilst a wail like a chant, shrill of 
key but faint, made a measure for her rocking. She 
was like an animal in pain—that was all, and for her 
Paul had thrown a great name to the winds! What 
a piece of irony that she, with hardly more brain and 


The Coup de Grace 247 

soul than a favourite dog, should have cost France so 
much! 

Gerard stooped and picked up his revolver. He 
broke the breech, ejected the one exploded cartridge, 
and closed the breech again with a snap. He leaned 
forward again to take a last look at that poor rag of 
flesh and bone, hung there for the vultures to feed 
upon, which once had been his friend—and he was 
aware of a subtle change in the woman behind him 
within the room. Oh, very slight, and for so small 
a space of time! But just for an imperceptible mo¬ 
ment her wail had faltered, the rocking of her body 
had been stayed. She had been watching him between 
those fingers with the henna-dyed nails which were so 
tightly pressed over her face. 

He looked at her closely without moving from his 
position. It was all going correctly on again—the 
lament, the swaying, the proper conventional expres¬ 
sion of the abandonment of grief. Yet she had been 
watching him, and for a moment she had been startled 
and afraid. Of what? And the truth flashed upon 
him. He had been fingering his revolver. She was 
afraid of the coup de grace. 

Then they were tricking him between them—she with 
her wailing, he spread out on the bulge of rock below. 
They should see! He stretched out his arm down¬ 
wards, the revolver pointed in his hand. And out of 
the tail of his eye he saw the woman cease from her 
exhibition and rise to her feet. As he took his aim 
she unwound the veil from before her face. He could 
not but look at her; and having looked, he could not 
take his eyes from her face. He stumbled into the 
room. “Marguerite Lambert!” he said, in a voice of 
wonder! “Yes, Marguerite Lambert!” 


CHAPTER XXI 


Two Outcasts 

G ERARD DE MONTIGNAC had never been so 
thoroughly startled and surprised in his life. 
But he was angrily conscious of an emotion 
far keener than his surprise. He was jealous. Jeal¬ 
ousy overmastered the shock of wonder, stabbed him 
through and left him aching. Marguerite Lambert, 
the girl of the Villa Iris, so politely difficult! And 
Paul Ravenel, the man without passion! Why, his 
brother officers used to laugh at him openly—nay, al¬ 
most sneered at him and made a butt of him—because 
of his coldness; and he, indifferent to their laughter, 
had just laughed back and gone his way. Well, he 
could afford to, it seemed, since he was here, and for 
two years had been here, hidden quite away from the 
world with Marguerite Lambert. 

They had stolen a march upon their friends, the pair 
of them, they had tricked them—yes, that was the ex¬ 
act right word—tricked them, even as they had just 
tried to trick him, she with her Oriental abandonment 
to grief—little “animal,” as he had called her in his 
thoughts—he stretched out on a knob of rock above a 
precipice in a pose of death! Gerard was in an ugly 
mood, and he spoke out his thought in a blaze of scorn. 

“I asked you the last time I saw you to give me two 
days of your life, my only two days. I asked no more. 
Yet you were insulted. You could give two years to 
another, but two days to me? Oh, dear, no! You 
wished never to speak to me again.” 

248 


Two Outcasts 249 

“I would give two days to no man/’ Marguerite 
replied, gently, “though I would give my whole life to 
one man.” 

“Even though he deserted?” Gerard asked, with a 
sneer. 

“Paul had not deserted when I gave myself to him,” 
she answered, quietly. “When he did, it was to save 
me!” 

Gerard did not want to hear anything about that. 
Some conjecture that the truth of this catastrophe was 
to be discovered there, had been at the back of his 
mind ever since he had recognised Marguerite. But 
he intended not to listen to it, not to let it speak at all. 
Somehow, her use of Paul’s name angered him ex¬ 
tremely. It dropped from her lips with so usual and 
homely a sound. 

“No doubt it was to save you. It would be!” he 
said, sardonically. “Some decent excuse would be 
needed even between you two when you sat together 
alone through the long dark evenings.” 

Gerard meant to hurt, but Marguerite wore an ar¬ 
mour against him and his arrows were much too blunt 
to pierce it. She had a purpose of her own to serve, 
of which Gerard de Montignac knew nothing; she was 
clutching at a desperate chance—if, indeed, so frail a 
thing could be called a chance—not of merely saving 
her lover’s life, but of so much more that she hardly 
dared to think upon it. Her only weapon now and 
for a long heart-breaking time to come, was patience. 

“You are unjust,” she said, without any anger, and 
without any appeal that he should reconsider his words. 
Gerard suddenly remembered the last words that the 
black-bearded Basha had spoken as he climbed onto his 
mule. 


250 


The Winding Stair 

“We are all in God’s hand.” 

Marguerite had spoken just in his tone. Argument 
and prayer were of no value now. It was all written, 
all fated. What would be, would be. Either Gerard 
de Montignac would drop that revolver from his hand 
and her desperate chance become a little less frail than 
before, or he would not. 

“What was it that woman in the spangled skirt used 
to say of you?” Gerard asked, with a seeming irrele¬ 
vance. 

“Henriette?” 

“Yes, Henriette. You had a look of fate. Yes! 
She was right, too. It was that look which set you 
apart, more than your beauty. Indeed, you weren’t 
beautiful then, Marguerite.” 

He was gazing at her moodily. The sharp anger 
had become a sullenness. Marguerite had grown into 
beauty since those days, but it was not the roseleaf 
beauty born of days without anxiety and nights with¬ 
out unrest. It was the beauty of one who is haunted 
by the ghosts of dead dreams and who wakes in the 
dark hours to weep very silently lest some one overhear. 
Destined for greater sorrows or perhaps greater joys 
than fall to the common lot! That was what Hen¬ 
riette had meant! And looking at Marguerite, Gerard, 
with a little ungenerous throb of pleasure, perceived 
that at all events the greater joys, if ever they had 
fallen to her, had faded away long since. 

“These have been unhappy years for you, Mar¬ 
guerite,” he said. 

“For both of us,” she answered. “How could they 
have been anything else ? Paul had lost everything for 
which he had striven, whilst I knew that it was I who 
had caused his loss.” 


Two Outcasts 


251 


“But he didn’t lose you.” 

“He didn’t have to strive for me,” Marguerite re¬ 
turned, with just the hint of a smile and more than a 
hint of pride. “I was his from his first call—no, even 
before he called.” 

Gerard could not but remember the first meeting of 
this tragic couple in the Villa Iris. Paul Ravenel had 
stood behind Marguerite’s chair, and without a word, 
without even turning her head to see who it was that 
stood behind her, she had risen from the midst of the 
Dagoes and Levantines, as at an order given. She had 
fallen into step at his side, and no word had as yet 
passed between them. Gerard de Montignac recollected 
that, even then, a little pang of jealousy had stabbed 
him and sharply enough to send him straight out of 
the cabaret. 

“Yes . . . yes,” he said, slowly. “I had never 
spoken to you then, had I? It wasn’t until after¬ 
wards . . .” He was thinking and drawing some 
queer sort of balm from the thought, that Marguerite 
had not so much flatly refused him his two days as set 
her heart on Paul Ravenel before she had met him. 
If it had been he, for instance, who had stood behind 
Marguerite’s chair and silently called her! But, then, 
he hadn’t. He had gone away and left the field clear 
for Paul Ravenel. Other memories came back to him 
to assuage his wrath. 

“After all, it was I who brought you and Ravenel 
together,” he said. “For it was I who persuaded him 
to come with me on that first night to the Villa Iris.” 

“Yes!” Marguerite drew in her breath sharply. 
“He told me that he almost didn’t come.” 

It would have been better if he had not come, if he 
had stayed quietly in his house and gone on with his 


252 


The Winding Stair 

report. So her judgment told her. But she could never 
imagine those moments during which Paul had stood 
in doubt, without picturing them so vividly that she 
had a quiver of fear lest he should decide not to come. 

“It was I, too, who sent Paul Ravenel to you at the 
end,” Gerard de Montignac continued; and as Mar¬ 
guerite drew her brows together in a wrinkle of per¬ 
plexity, “Yes,” he assured her. “The night after you 
didn’t want to speak to me any more, I went back to 
the Villa Iris to find you. Did you know that? Yes, 
I was leaving the next morning with the advance guard 
for Fez. I didn’t know what might happen on the 
march. I wanted to make friends with you again, so 
that if anything did happen to me, you wouldn’t have 
any bitter memories of me.” 

“That was a kind thought,” said Marguerite. 

“Kind to myself,” returned Gerard, with, for the 
first time in this interview, the ghost of a smile. Yet 
to Marguerite it was as the glimmer of dawn upon a 
black night of sickness and pain. There was a hope, 
then, that the revolver would be returned to its holster 
with its remaining five cartridges still undischarged. 
Gerard’s own memories were at work with him, 
memories of a kindlier self, with enthusiasms and gen¬ 
erous thoughts; and they must be left to do their work. 
There was little that she could say or do—and that 
little not until his mood had changed. 

“I didn’t find you,” Gerard resumed. “You had 
gone. Henriette told me how you had gone and why. 
Yes, the whole horrible story of that old harridan and 
the Greek! And you had dropped your bundle and 
disappeared. And Henriette feared for you. I was 
leaving at six in the morning; I was helpless. I went 


Two Outcasts 


253 


on to Paul Ravenel and told him that he must find 
you before any harm came to you. And he did, of 
course. That’s clear. So I had my share in all this 
dreadful business. Yes . . . yes, I hadn’t realised it.” 

He sat down on a chair by the table and stared at 
its surface with his forehead puckered. But he still 
held the butt of his revolver in his hand. If only he 
would lay it down just for a moment! Marguerite 
had a queer conviction that he would never take it up 
again to use outside the window, once he let go of it. 
But he did not let go. His fingers, indeed, tightened 
upon the handle, and he cried: “I don’t know what to 
do.” Neither did Marguerite. She could let Gerard 
de Montignac remain in his error, or she could dispel 
it. She was greatly tempted not to interfere. It was 
a small matter, anyway. Only, small matters count so 
much in great issues. Let the scales tremble, the 
merest splinter will make one of them touch ground. 
Marguerite trusted to some instinct which she could 
not afterwards explain. 

“Perhaps I am unwise,” she said. The note of hesi¬ 
tation, for the first time audible, drew Gerard’s eyes 
to her troubled face. “But I don’t know . . . The 
truth is you had no real share in our”—she paused for 
a word which would neither blame nor excuse—“in 
our disaster. The night I was turned out, Paul was 
waiting for me in the garden. I didn’t expect him. I 
was in despair. I dropped my bundle; and he rose up 
out of the darkness in front of me. I loved him. It 
was the wonderful thing come true. He took me away 
to a house which he had got ready-” 

“A house near to his on the sea-wall?” suddenly 
exclaimed Gerard. 



254 


The Winding Stair 


“Yes.” 

“That’s true, then. I saw his agent and him com¬ 
ing out of it. I think that I told Henriette, never 
dreaming that the house was meant for you, that you 
were already in it when I told Henriette.” He looked 
at Marguerite suddenly with eyes of pity. “You two 
poor children!” he exclaimed, softly, and after a few 
moments he added with a whimsical smile, “I told 
Paul that he would break his leg when we, the less 
serious ones, only barked our shins. It is a bad thing 
not to walk in the crowd, Marguerite.” 

He watched her for a little while like a man in 
doubt. Then he reached his arm out and tapped with 
the muzzle of his revolver—for he still held it in his 
hand—on the part of the table opposite to him. 

“You must sit down and tell me exactly what hap¬ 
pened.” 

Marguerite obeyed. She told Gerard of her journey 
up from the coast to Fez when Paul was sure that the 
road was safe, and how she came to the little palace 
with the door upon the roofed alley which Paul had 
got ready for her. Gerard, who had thought to listen 
to her story without question or comment, could not 
restrain an exclamation. 

“You were in Fez, then, all that year!” he said, 
wondering. “In the house of Si Ahmed Driss! I 
never dreamt of it. Even when I discovered it and 
searched it, that never occurred to me. When I saw 
you both here, I imagined that Paul had slipped away 
at a bad moment for France, without a thought of his 
duty, to join you at Mulai Idris in accordance with a 
plan.” 

Marguerite shook her head. 

“No. I was in the house at Fez. Later, on that 


Two Outcasts 


255 

night of the sixteenth, he knew that the massacres were 
certain. He went to headquarters with the information. 
If they had listened to him then, he would never have 
deserted at all. But they wouldn’t listen, and he had 
to choose.” 

She described how on the next day the fanatics had 
rushed in searching for a French officer who had been 
seen once or twice to visit there. 

“It was not before that night, then, the night he 
came to the headquarters, that he was sure?” Gerard 
interrupted, quickly. 

“No.” 

“They would have come to seek him in the house, 
even if he had ridden straight back from the Hospital 
Auvert to Dar-Debibagh.” 

“Yes.” 

“Then he did save your life by deserting,” said 
Gerard. And, on the other hand, he asked himself was 
there any duty not discharged because Paul did desert ? 
Was there any mistake made because the little Praslin 
led Paul Ravenel’s company along the river bed instead 
of Paul himself? 

“My God, but it’s difficult!” cried Gerard. “Com¬ 
plexities upon complexities! How shall one judge— 
unless”—and he caught with relief at his good rules 
and standards—“yes, unless one walks in the crowd. 
It’s the only way to walk. Thou shalt do this! Thou 
shalt not do that! All clear and ordered and written 
in the book.” 

Gerard had gibed enough in his day at those in¬ 
numerable soldiers who answered every problem of 
regulations and manoeuvres immediately with a com¬ 
placent “It’s so laid down,” or “It’s not so laid down in 
the book.” He was glad to get back in the windings 


256 


The Winding Stair 

of this case to the broad highway of “the book.” The 
book told him how to deal with Paul Ravenel. Well, 
then!— Yet—yet ! 

Marguerite watched his face cloud over, and hur¬ 
riedly continued her story, or rather began to continue 
it. For at her first words as to how Paul had out¬ 
witted the invaders of the house in Fez Gerard inter¬ 
rupted her with a cry. 

“The uniform tunic, eh, Marguerite? The tunic all 
hacked and battered with blood?” He uttered a little 
wholesome laugh of appreciation. “And all prepared 
in readiness the night before. Yes, I recognise Paul 
there.” 

This was the third time that Gerard de Montignac 
had spoken of “Paul” without any “Ravenel” added to 
it to show that he and Paul were strangers. Mar¬ 
guerite, you may be sure, had counted each one of 
them with a little leap of the heart. “And the blood!” 
he went on. “I think I know whence that came. His 
arm, eh? Wasn’t it so?” 

Marguerite had determined to use no tricks with 
him, but she could not resist one now, the oldest and 
simplest and the never-failing. She looked at Gerard 
with awe and admiration—so sharp he was and pene¬ 
trating. 

“Yes. Oh, but how did you know? It’s rather 
wonderful.” 

“When he was standing against the window there, 
the sleeve of his djellaba fell back. There was a scar 
like a white seam on his forearm.” 

“Yes.” 

Marguerite breathed her wonder at this prodigy of 
insight, and, like a good artist, having made her point, 



Two Outcasts 257 

she did not labour it. She related with what reluctance 
Paul had afterwards told her the thing which he had 
done. 

“I knew nothing of it before. I thought that he was 
on leave. I should have killed myself whilst there was 
yet time for him to return to the camp if I had known. 
Even when I did know, I hoped that he could make 
some excuse, and I tried to kill myself. But he had, 
of course, foreseen that, and prepared against it.” 

Gerard nodded. , 

“How?” 

t 

“He had taken my little pistol secretly from the 
drawer where I kept it. He did not give it me back 
again until I promised that I would not use it unless 
the Moors were on the stair.” 

Gerard de Montignac started suddenly and pushed 
his chair sharply back. Some quite new consideration 
had flashed into his mind. He looked at Marguerite 
with a sentence upon his lips. But he did not speak 
it. He turned away and took a turn across the room 
towards the window and back again, whilst Marguerite 
waited with her heart in her mouth. 

“What am I to do?” he asked; and to Marguerite 
the fact of his actually addressing the question to her 
made the interview more of a nightmare than ever. 
He was standing close to her (breaking the breech of 
his revolver and snapping it to again, and almost un¬ 
aware of who she was, and quite unaware that with 
each click and snap of the mechanism she could have 
screamed aloud). “What am I to do, Marguerite?” 

Marguerite mastered her failing nerves. 

“Those trenches outside Mulai Idris,” she said. 
“They were dug to resist the Zemmour. The people 


258 The Winding Stair 

here might have used them against you but for Paul. 
He warned the Basha that he couldn’t win, that he 
would find you just and fair and careful of all his 
rights. Do you believe that?” 

Gerard reflected. 

“Yes, I do,” he said, slowly. “After all, he charged 
with Laguessiere when Laguessiere was put to it.” 

“Charged with Laguessiere?” repeated Marguerite. 

“Yes—in Fez—one afternoon during the revolt. He 
had a great staff and used it—used it well. So much 
of the old creed remained with him, at all events.” 

Yes, thought Marguerite, there had been an after¬ 
noon when Paul had been on edge and she had sent 
him out. He had come back, appeased, and a new 
man. The riddle of that change was now explained 
to her. But she had no leisure to dwell upon the ex¬ 
planation. Gerard had swung away again from her, 
and was now standing close to the window looking out 
across the chasm to the dark blue of the hill in the 
shadow opposite. One little step would carry him on 
to the balcony, and the butt of his revolver was still 
in his hand. 

“Listen to me, Marguerite,” he said, in a low voice; 
and suddenly he became, to her thought, more dan¬ 
gerous in his calm than he had been in his anger. 
“Here’s a law broken by you and Paul, and see what 
misery has come of it! What loss! Shall I repair that 
law by breaking another ? Hardly! Look at me, Mar¬ 
guerite !” 

But he did not look at her. He even advanced a 
foot beyond the window-ledge so that the boards of the 
balcony creaked and groaned beneath its pressure. 

“I could have lived in Paris with Deauville for the 
summer and Monte Carlo for the winter, and my own 


Two Outcasts 


259 


lands for the autumn—a pleasant, good life. I could 
have lived with women about me—the fine flower of 
them, the women who are exquisite and delicate. But I 
didn’t. I left the enjoyments to the others. I came 
out into these hot countries, the countries of squalor, 
to serve France. And I have served; yes, by God, I 
have served! That has been my creed. Shall I let 
another spit on it, even though he was my greatest 
friend ? Not I!” 

Marguerite gave all up for lost. The one chance at 
the eleventh hour was not to be tried out by Paul and 
her. Well—she was very tired. She closed her eyes 
that she might not see anything of what happened at 
the window—anything more in the world. If ever she 
had worn the look of one set apart by fate, as so many 
had declared, she wore it now, stamped upon the sub¬ 
mission of her face. Her hands went to her girdle and 
felt within its folds; and that action saved her lover 
and herself. For Gerard de Montignac saw it as he 
was stepping out onto the boards of the balcony. 

“Wait!” he cried, in a sharp, loud voice; and in a 
moment he was standing in front of her with a look of 
horror in his eyes. “The little pistol, which Paul took 
away from you and gave you back only on your prom¬ 
ise—where is it ?” 

Marguerite neither moved nor answered him. 

“It is there,” he cried, pointing to where her hand 
rested within her belt. It was that bedrabbled woman 
in the spangled skirt who had prophesied it. Henriette, 
yes, Henriette! It was strange over how many years 
that poor waif’s words had reached and with what 
efifect. “No!” he cried. “You must go your ways. 
I’ll not have that upon my soul the day I die,” and he 
turned from her and rushed from the room, and in a 


260 The Winding Stair 

few moments Marguerite heard the sound of a horse 
galloping away down the cobbled street as though its 
rider had no thought for his neck. 

Gerard de Montignac talked for many hours the 
next day with the Basha in the house at the city’s 
top. But neither he nor the Basha spoke once of Si 
Tayeb Reha. They came to a good understanding, and 
Gerard rode back to his camp, his work in Mulai Idris 
done. He sat in his camp chair outside his tent that 
night watching the few lights upon the hillside go out 
one after the other and Mulai Idris glimmer, unsub¬ 
stantial, as the silver city of a dream. 

Gerard had carried off a small sort of triumph which 
would mean many good marks in the books of his 
great commander. But he was only thinking to-night 
of the two outcasts in the house on the city wall. 
Whither would they seek a refuge now that the gates 
of Mulai Idris were to stand open to the world? And 
was it worth their while? Marguerite’s haunted face 
and Paul Ravenel burrowing deeper and deeper into 
obscurity! Gerard turned to Laguessiere, who was 
smoking at his side. 

“Walk in the crowd, my friend! It is always less 
dangerous to walk in the crowd. Well, let us turn in, 
for we start early to-morrow.” 

In the morning the tents were gone and Gerard’s 
column was continuing its march through the Zarhoun. 


CHAPTER XXII 


The Splendid Throw 

W HAT had happened between the moment 
when Gerard de Montignac rode away from 
the door of Si Tayeb Reha’s house the first 
time and the moment when the pistol shot rang out? 
It had all been Marguerite Lambert’s idea—a despair¬ 
ing clutch at some faint and far-off possibility, hardly 
a hope, yet worth putting to the proof. She had heard 
every word which Gerard had spoken. She had seen 
the revolver laid upon the table. She had seen even 
more than that. For when Gerard had gone from the 
room, Paul had taken the revolver at once in his hands. 
It would be a very little while before the sergeant no¬ 
ticed that Gerard’s revolver was missing from its 
pouch. He had not even time to write more than one 
“good-bye” to Marguerite, There were good friends 
who would look after her—the Basha himself, Selim 
his own servant. 

The road to the coast passed across the plain below 
the city, and there was a letter for her long since 
written with his instructions, on the top of his desk. 
He paused after he had written his one word to make 
sure that he had forgotten nothing. The addresses of 
his agents and his lawyers were written in the letter 
and all that he had, his property in the English funds, 
his houses in Fez and Casablanca, was bequeathed to 
her in a will of which Mr. Ferguson had charge. No, 

nothing had been forgotten—except that Marguerite 

261 


262 The Winding Stair 

herself was watching him from behind the curtains. 
She came into the room. 

Paul handed to her the paper with the one word 
“good-bye” written upon it. 

“Marguerite, Gerard de Montignac has been here.” 

“I know. I heard.” 

“Then you understand, my dear. This is the end 
for me.” 

“For both of us, then, Paul.” 

He began to argue and stopped. The futility of his 
words was too evident. She would follow him, what¬ 
ever he might say. He began to thank her for the 
great love she had lavished on him and he stopped 
again. “I could never tell you what you have meant to 
me,” he said, helplessly. “But if it was all to do again, 
I should do as I did. For nothing in the world would 
I have left you alone through those days in the house 
of Si Ahmed Driss. Only, it is a pity that it must all 
end like this.” 

He took her in his arms and kissed her and put her 
from him. “Will you leave me now, my dear? At 
any moment the knock may come upon the door.” 

It was then that Marguerite’s inspiration came to 
her. She besought him to hold his hand. She fetched 
a rope and an axe. Often she had noticed from the 
window that ledge of rock breaking the precipice be¬ 
low. Paul was inclined to revolt against the trick 
which she was asking him to play. It was not likely 
to succeed with Gerard de Montignac. It would only 
add one more touch of indignity to their deaths. But 
Marguerite was urgent. 

“I’m not thinking of just saving our lives, Paul, so 
that we may fly and hide ourselves again in some still 
darker corner for a little while,” she said, eagerly. “I’ll 


The Splendid Throw 263 

tell you of my hope, my plan, afterwards. Now we 
must hurry.” 

Paul doubled the rope over one of the iron stanchions 
of the balcony close to the wall, whilst Marguerite 
locked the door. He climbed over the rail, and, taking 
a turn of the doubled rope round the upper part of his 
right arm and another turn round his right thigh, he 
let himself down until he hung below the balcony. He 
kept his arms squared and his hands below the level 
of his chin, and placing the flat of his feet against the 
wall of the house, he was able, by slackening the coils 
round arm and thigh, to descend without effort to the 
ledge of rock, where he lay huddled in a counterfeit 
of death. 

“Don’t move until you hear my voice calling to 
you,” she whispered. Then she drew up the rope and 
broke down the rail of the balcony with some blows 
of the axe, and, unlocking the door, hid away both axe 
and rope in another room. She came back swiftly, and 
then, taking up the heavy revolver, fired it out of the 
window and let it fall upon the boards of the balcony. 
She dropped to her knees, and thus Gerard de Mon- 
tignac found her. 

All through that scene, whilst life and death were in 
the balance for these two, Paul Ravenel lay motionless 
upon the ledge of rock below the city wall. He dared 
not look up; he heard Gerard’s voice raised in anger 
and scorn; he expected the shock of the bullet tearing 
through his heart. But the voice diminished to a mur¬ 
mur. Gerard had gone back into the room. Some 
debate was in progress, and while it was in progress, 
from this and that far quarter of the sky the vultures 
gathered and wheeled above the precipice. . . . 

After a while he heard Marguerite’s voice, and, 


264 


The Winding Stair 

looking up, saw that she was letting down the rope 
to him. She had tied knots in it at intervals to help 
him in his ascent, and he clambered up to her side. 

“Gerard has gone?” he asked. 

“Yes. He will not come here again.” 

“Then he believed you?” 

“No. He left us in pity to live our lives out as best 
we could,” said Marguerite. 

Paul nodded his head. 

“Others will be coming and going now,” he said. 
“This city will become a show-place, very likely. We 
can’t remain in Mulai Idris because of those others.” 

“And we can’t remain anywhere else because of 
ourselves,” said Marguerite, quietly. 

Paul was not startled by the words. They were no 
more than the echo of words which he had been try¬ 
ing during this last half-hour not to speak to himself. 
They had built up with elaborate care a great pretence 
of contentment, watching themselves so that there 
might be no betrayal of the truth, watching each other 
so that if the truth did at some unendurable moment 
flash out, no heed should be taken of it; and hoping 
even without any conviction that one day the content¬ 
ment would grow real. But all that patient edifice of 
pretence was a crumble of dust now. The outer world 
in the person of Gerard de Montignac in his uniform 
had rushed in, with his hard logic, its scorn for duty 
abandoned, its emblems of duty fulfilled; and there was 
no more any peace for Paul Ravenel and Marguerite 
Lambert. To live for thirty or forty years more as they 
had been living! It was in both their thoughts that 
it would have been better for Gerard de Montignac to 
have done straightway what he threatened, and for 


The Splendid Throw 265 

Marguerite to have followed her lover as she had de¬ 
termined. 

Paul sat down at the table with his eyes upon Mar¬ 
guerite. She had some hope, some plan. So much 
she had said. Was it, he wondered, the plan of which 
he from time to time had dreamed, but for her sake 
had never dared to speak? He waited. 

“You are a man, Paul,” she began, “oh, generous as 
men should not be, but a man. And you sit here idle. 
A great personage in Mulai Idris, no doubt. The 
power behind the throne—the Basha’s throne!” The 
hard words were spoken with a loving gentleness which 
drew their sting. “A man must have endeavour—I 
don’t say success—but endeavour of a kind, if only in 
games. Otherwise what ? He becomes a thing in car¬ 
pet slippers, old before his youth is spent, and this you 
would dwindle, too, for me! No, my dear!” 

Paul made no gesture and uttered no word. She 
was to speak her thought out. 

“You laugh and joke with these people here. For 
five minutes at a time no doubt you can forget,” she 
continued. “But you can never exchange thoughts 
with your equals, you can never talk over old dreams 
you have had in common, old, hard, and tough experi¬ 
ences which you have shared. And these things, Paul, 
are all necessary for a man.” 

Again Paul Ravenel neither denied nor agreed. He 
left to her the right of way. 

“And in spite of all you still love me!” she cried, in 
a sudden fervour, clasping her hands together upon 
her breast. “Me whom you should hate. I clutch the 
wonder of that to my heart. I must keep your love.” 

Paul Ravenel smiled. 


266 The Winding Stair 

“There’s no danger of your losing it, Marguerite.” 

Marguerite shook her head. 

“But there is—oh, not at once! But I am warned, 
Paul. There’s the light showing on the reef. I keep 
my course at more than my peril.” 

Paul went back upon his words and his looks. What 
could he have said, he who so watched himself? 

“And this warning?” he asked, with a smile, making 
light of it. 

“We dare not quarrel,” she answered, slowly. 
“That human natural thing is barred from us. The 
sharp words flashing out, the shrug of impatience, the 
few tears perhaps from me, the silent hour of sulkiness 
in you, the making-up, the tenderness and remorse— 
these things are for other lovers, Paul, never, my dear, 
for you and me. We daren’t quarrel. We must watch 
ourselves night and day lest we do! For if we did, 
the unforgivable word might be spoken. I might fling 
my debt to you in your face. I might be reminded of 
it, anyway. No, we must live in a constraint. Other 
lovers can quarrel and love no less. Not you and I— 
a man who has given his honour and career, and a 
woman who has taken them!” 

The argument silenced Paul Ravenel, for there was 
no disputing it. How daintily the pair of them had 
minced amongst words! With w r hat terror of a catas¬ 
trophe if the tongue slipped! 

“So . . . ?” he asked. 

“Yes,” said Marguerite, with a nod. “So! So, 
Paul, let us stake all on one splendid throw! Go down 
if we must, but if we do, in a fine endeavour, and per¬ 
haps, after all, win out to the open street!” 

She spoke with a ring in her voice which Paul had 
not heard for a long while. 


The Splendid Throw 267 

“How?” he asked, and the light leaped in his eyes. 
So much hung upon the answer. 

“The French are recruiting Moorish soldiers-” 

and she got no further, for Paul sprang up from his 
chair, his face one flame of hope. 

“Marguerite!” he cried, in a thrilling voice, and 
then sank down again with his face buried in his arms. 
“Marguerite!” he whispered, and the tenderness and 
gratitude with which the utterance of her name was 
winged, she caught into her memories and treasured 
there against the solitude which was to come. 

She moved round the table and laid her hand upon 
his bowed head and let it slip and rest upon his heav¬ 
ing shoulder. 

“So the thought has been in your mind too, Paul?” 
she said, with a smile. 

“Yes.” 

“And for a long time ?” 

“Yes.” 

“And you would not speak it. No! I must find 
that way out for myself,” she said, gently chiding him, 
“lest you should seem to wish at all costs to be rid of 
me,” She walked away from his side and drew a 
chair up to the table opposite to him. 

“Let us be practical,” she said, very wisely, though 
her eyes danced. “It would be possible for you to 
enlist without being recognised?” 

Paul lifted his head and nodded: 

“Over in the south by Marrakesch.” 

“And you could continue to escape recognition.” 

“I think so. Even if I were recognised, very likely 
those who recognised me would say nothing. I re¬ 
member a case once ...” 

“Here ?” cried Marguerite. “There was a case, then 



268 The Winding Stair 

—an example to follow—and even so you would not 
tell me.” 

“I didn’t mean I know of a case here. I was think' 
ing of another country. India. If that man could, I 
could, for I am even better equipped than he was.” 

Paul Ravenel could say that with confidence. He 
knew more of the Moors, had more constantly lived 
their life and spoken their dialects than Colonel Van- 
derfelt had known of the Pathans upon the frontier 
of India. The example of Colonel Vanderfelt had 
been long in Paul Ravenel’s thoughts. How often had 
he watched with an envy not to be described, both when 
he waked and when he slept, that limping figure, with 
the medals shining upon his breast, walk down the dark 
city street from the brilliant lights of the Guildhall! 

How often had this room in the remote hill town of 
Mulai Idris been suddenly filled with the fragrance of 
a Sussex garden, whilst he himself looked out not 
upon the hillside of Zahoun but upon a dim and dewy 
lawn where roses clustered! He had done the bad 
thing which his father did, and, like his father, lost his 
place in the world. Could he now win back that place 
by the expiation of his father’s friend? Was it not of 
excellent omen that the solution which he had remem¬ 
bered, Marguerite had herself devised? But she must 
weigh everything. 

“It may be long before opportunity comes,” he 
warned her. “Such opportunity as will restore to me 
my name. It may never come at all. Or death may 
come with it.” 

Marguerite looked round the room and out of the 
window to the barren hill. 

“Is not this death, Paul?” she answered, simply, and 
he was answered. 


The Splendid Throw 269 

“You must make me a promise, too, before I go, 
Marguerite,” he continued. “More than once you’ve 
said you couldn’t go on living if . . 

Marguerite interrupted him. 

“I promise.” 

“Then I’ll go.” 

A great load was lifted from both of them. They 
set straightway about their preparations. Marguerite 
was to set out first with Selim and her women. The 
road over the Red Hill to Tangier was no longer safe 
at all, since it passed through a portion of the Spanish 
zone. But five days of easy travel would take her to 
Casablanca, through a country now peaceful as a road 
in France. She would go to Marseilles, she said, and 
wait there for news of Paul. They passed that evening 
with a lightness of spirit which neither of them had 
known since they had laughed and loved in the house of 
Si Ahmed Driss before the massacres of Fez. 

“There is one thing which troubles me,” said Paul, 
catching her in his arms and speaking with a great 
tenderness. “Long ago in Fez you once told me of a 
girl who, when her husband died, dressed herself in 
her wedding gown-” 

“Hush!” said Marguerite, and laid her hand upon 
his lips. 

“You remember, then?” said Paul. He took her 
hand gently away, and Marguerite bent her head down 
and nodded. “ T couldn’t do that, my dear,’ you said. 
I have never forgotten it, Marguerite. I should have 
dearly loved, if before we parted—that had been pos¬ 
sible.” 

Marguerite raised her face. There were tears in her 
eyes, but her lips were smiling, and there was a smile, 
too, in her eyes behind the tears. 



270 


The Winding Stair 

“I know! the World proscribes not love; 

Allows my finger to caress 
Your lips contour and downiness 
Provided I supply a glove. 

<( The World's good word!—the Institute! 

Guizot receives Montalcmbert! 

Eh? Dozen the court three lampions dare; 

Put forward your best foot!” 

She quoted with a laugh from the poet whose brown 
books had been the backbone of their library, and then 
drew his head down to hers and whispered: 

‘‘Thank you, Paul. The world shall supply its glove 
—afterwards, when you come back to me.” 

“But if I don’t come back ... ?” 

“Well, then, my dear, since you have been the only 
man for me, and I have been the only woman for you, 
we must hope that the good God will make the best of 
it.” She laughed again and her arms tightened about 
his neck. “But come back to me, my dear!” she whis¬ 
pered. “I am young, you know, Paul—twenty-three. 
I shall have such a long time to wait if you don’t, now 
that I have promised.” 

They were ready within the twenty-four hours. The 
tail of Gerard de Montignac’s column had hardly dis¬ 
appeared before Marguerite, with her little escort, her 
tents and camp outfit, rode out of the gate of Mulai 
Idris and turned northwards past the columns of Volu- 
bilis. Paul rode with her to the top of the breach in 
the hills, whence the track zigzagged down to the plain 
of the Sebou. There they took their leave of one an¬ 
other. At each turn of the road Marguerite looked up¬ 
wards and saw her lover upon his horse, his blue cape 


The Splendid Throw 271 

and white robes fluttering about him, outlined against 
the sky. The tears were raining down her face now 
which she had withheld so long as they were together, 
and in her heart was one deep call to him: “Oh, come 
back to me!” She looked up again and the breach in 
the hills was empty. Her lover had gone. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


The Necessary Man 

I N the summer of that same year, the thundercloud 
burst over Europe, and France, at her moment of 
need, reaped the fine harvest of her colonial policy. 
Black men and brown mustered to the call of her bugle 
as men having their share of France. Gerard de Mon- 
tignac scrambled like his brother officers to get to the 
zone of battles. He was seconded in the autumn, was 
promoted colonel a year later, and was then summoned 
to Paris. 

In a little room upon the first floor in a building ad¬ 
jacent to the War Office Gerard discovered Baumann, 
of the Affaires Indigenes, but an uplifted Baumann, a 
Baumann who had grown a little supercilious towards 
colonels. 

“Ah, De Montignac!’’ he said, with a wave of the 
hand. “I have been expecting you. Yes. Will you 
sit down for a moment ?” 

Gerard smiled and obeyed contentedly. There were 
so many Baumanns about nowadays, and he never tired 
of them. Baumann frowned portentously over some 
papers on his desk for a few moments, and then, push¬ 
ing them aside, smoothed out his forehead with the 
palm of his hand. 

“Yours is a simpler affair, De Montignac. I am 
happy to say,” he said, with a happy air of relief. 

“The Governor-General is in Paris. You will see him 

272 


The Necessary Man 273 

after this interview. He wants you again in Mo¬ 
rocco.” 

“It is necessary?” Gerard asked, unwillingly. 

“Not a doubt of it, my dear fellow. You can take 
that from me. The Governor-General is holding the 
country with the merest handful of soldiers, and there 
are—annoyances.” 

“Serious ones?” 

“Very. Bartels, for instance.” 

“Bartels?” Gerard repeated. “I never heard of 
him.” 

Far away from the main shock of the battles, many 
curious and romantic episodes were occurring, many 
strange epics of prowess and adventure which will 
never find a historian. Bartels was the hero of one, 
and here in Baumann’s clipped phrases are the bare 
bones of his exploit. 

“He was a non-commissioned officer in the German 
army . . . enlisted on his discharge in our Foreign 
Legion—was interned in August, 1914, and got away 
to Melilla.” 

“In the Spanish zone, on the coast. Yes,” said 
Gerard. 

“He was safe there and on the edge of the Riff 
country. He got into touch with a more than usually 
turbulent chieftain of those parts, Abd-el-Malek, and 
also with a German official in Spain. From the Ger¬ 
man officials Bartels received by obscure routes fifteen 
thousand pounds a month in solid cash, minus, of 
course, a certain attrition which the sum suffers on the 
way.” 

“Of course,” said Gerard. 

“With the fifteen thousand—call it twelve—with the 
twelve thousand pounds a month actually received, and 


274 The Winding Stair 

Abd-el-Malek’s help, Bartels has built himself a walled 
camp up in the hills close to the edge of the French 
zone, where he maintains two thousand riflemen well 
paid and well armed.” 

: Gerard leaned forward quickly. 

'‘But surely a protest has been made to Spain?” 

Baumann smiled indulgently. 

“How you rush at things, my dear De Montignac!” 

“It will be ‘Gerard’ in a moment,” De Montignac 
thought. 

“Of course a protest has been lodged. But Spain 
renounces responsibility. The camp is in a part of the 
country which she has officially declared to be not yet 
subdued. On the other hand, it is in the Spanish zone 
—and we have enough troubles upon our hands as it is, 
eh?” 

Gerard leaned back in his chair. 

“That has always been our trouble, hasn’t it? The 
unsubdued Spanish zone,” he said, moodily. “What 
does Bartels do with his two thousand riflemen?” 

“He wages war. He comes across into French 
Morocco, and raids and loots and burns and generally 
plays the devil. And, mark you, he gets information; 
he chooses his time cleverly. When we are just about 
to embark fresh troops to France, that’s his favourite 
moment. The troops have to be retained, rushed 
quickly up country—and he, Bartels, is snugly back on 
the Spanish side of the line and we can’t touch him. 
Bartels, my dear De Montignac”—and here Baumann, 
of the Affaires Indigenes, tapped the table impressively 
with the butt of his pencil—“Bartels has got to be 
dealt with.” 

“Yes,” Gerard replied. “But how, doesn’t seem 
quite so obvious, does it?” 


275 


The Necessary Man 

Baumann gently flourished his hand. 

“We leave that with every confidence to you, my 
dear Colonel.” 

Gerard pushed his chair back. 

“Oh, you do, do you! I don’t know that I’ve the 
type of brain for that job,” he said, and thought dis¬ 
consolately how often he had jeered at the officers 
who simply passed everything that wasn’t in “the 
book.” He would very much have liked to take the 
same line now. “How does this fellow Bartels get 
his twelve thousand pounds?” 

“Through Tetuan probably. We don’t quite know,” 
said Baumann. 

“And where exactly is his camp on the map?” Ger¬ 
ard asked next. 

“We are not sure. We can give you, of course, a 
general idea.” 

“We have nobody amongst his two thousand men, 
then ?” 

“Not a soul. So, you see, you have a clear 
field.” 

“Yes, I see that, and I need hardly say that I am 
very grateful,” said De Montignac. 

Baumann was not quick to appreciate irony even in 
its crudest form. He smiled as one accepting compli¬ 
ments. 

“We do our best, my dear Gerard,” and Gerard 
beamed with satisfaction. He had heard what he had 
wanted to hear, and he would not spoil its flavour. He 
rose at once and took up his cap. 

“I will go and see the Governor-General.” 

“You will find him next door,” said Baumann. “We 
keep him next door to us whilst he is in Paris, so far 
as we can.” 


276 The Winding Stair 

“You are very wise,” said Gerard, gravely, and he 
went next door, which was the War Office. There he 
met his chief, who said: 

“You have seen Baumann? Good! Take a little 
leave, but go as soon as you can. Ten days, eh? I 
will see you in a fortnight at Rabat,” and the Governor- 
General passed on to the Elysee. 

Gerard de Montignac did not, however, take his ten 
days. He knew his chief, a tall, preeminent man, both 
in war and administration, who, with the utmost good- 
fellowship, expected much of his officers. Gerard 
spent one day in Paris and then travelled to Marseilles. 
At Marseilles he had to wait two days, and visited in 
consequence a hospital where a number of Moorish 
soldiers lay wounded, men of all shades from the fair 
Fasi to the coal-black negro from the south. Their 
faces broke into smiles as Gerard exchanged a word or 
a joke with them in their own dialects. 

He stopped a little abruptly at the foot of one bed 
in which the occupant lay asleep with—a not uncom¬ 
mon sight in the ward—a brand-new medaille militaire 
pinned upon the pillow. 

“He is badly hurt?” Gerard asked. 

“He is recovering very well,” said the nurse who ac¬ 
companied him. “We expect to have him out of the 
hospital in a fortnight.” 

Gerard remained for a moment or two looking at 
the sleeper, and the nurse watched him curiously. 

“It will do him no harm if I wake him up,” she sug¬ 
gested. 

Gerard roused himself from an abstraction into 
which he had fallen. 

“No,” he answered, with a laugh. “If I was a gen¬ 
eral, I would say, yes. But sleep is a better medicine 


277 


The Necessary Man 

than a crack with a mere colonel. What is his name?” 

“Ahmed Ben Larti,” said the nurse, and with a care¬ 
less “So?” Gerard de Montignac moved along to the 
next bed. But before he passed out of the ward he 
jerked his head towards the sleeper and asked: 

“Will he be fit for service again?” 

“Certainly,” she answered. “In a month, I should 
think.” 

Gerard left the hospital, and the next morning was 
back in Baumann’s office in Paris. 

“I have found the man I want,” he said. 

“Who is he ?” 

“Ahmed Ben Larti. Lie is in hospital at Marseilles. 
He has the medaille militaire.” 

Baumann shrugged his shoulders. “Who has it 
not?” he seemed to say. 

“I had better see the Governor-General,” said 
Gerard. 

Baumann became mysterious, as befitted a high of¬ 
ficer of Intelligence. 

“Difficult, my young friend,” he began. 

“Excellent, Baumann, excellent,” interrupted Ger¬ 
ard, with a chuckle. 

Baumann pouted. 

“I don’t quite understand,” he said. 

“And there’s no reason that you should,” Gerard an¬ 
swered, politely. 

Baumann was not very pleased. It was his business 
to do the mystifying. 

“It’s practically impossible that you should see the 
Governor-General again. He is so occupied,” he said, 
firmly. 

Gerard got up from his chair. 

“Where is he?” 


278 The ^Winding Stair 

“Ah!” said Baumann, wisely. “That is another 
matter.” 

“Then you don’t know,” exclaimed Gerard, standing 
over him. 

“No,” answered Baumann, and it took Gerard the 
rest of that day before he ran his chief to earth. Like 
other busy men, the Governor-General had the neces¬ 
sary time to give to necessary things, and in a spare 
corner of the Colonial Office, he listened with some 
astonishment, asked a few questions, and wrote a note 
to the War Office. 

“This will get you what you want, De Montignac. 
For the rest, I agree.” 

Forty-eight hours later Gerard had a long interview 
with Ahmed Ben Larti in a private ward to which the 
Moor had been removed: and towards the end of the 
interview, Ahmed Ben Larti made a suggestion. 

“That’s it!” said Gerard enthusiastically. Then his 
spirits dropped. “But we haven’t got any. No, we 
haven’t got one.” 

“The Governor-General,” the Moor suggested. 

“I’ll send him a telegram,” said Gerard de Montig¬ 
nac. 

Now this was in the spring of autumn, 1916, when 
Bartels was in the full bloom of power. His camp 
was full, for the danger was small, the pay high, and 
the discipline easy. The Moor brought his horse and 
his rifle, was paid so many dollars a day, and could go 
home if the pay failed or his harvest called him. But 
in the autumn Bartels in his turn began to suffer an¬ 
noyance. Thus, on one occasion a strange humming 
filled the air, and a most alarming thing swooped out 
of the sky with a roar and dropped a bomb in the mid¬ 
dle of the camp. 


The Necessary Man 279 

Bartels ran out of his hut with an oath. “They’ve 
located us at last,” he growled. Not one of his sol¬ 
diers had ever seen an aeroplane before, except perhaps 
the man who was cowering down on the ground close 
to him with every expression of terror. Bartels jerked 
him up to his feet. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Ahmed Ben Larti.” 

“They make a great noise, but they hurt no one,” 
Bartels declared. “Tell the others!” 

The others were running for their lives to any sort 
of shelter. For, indeed, this sort of thing was worse 
than cannon. And unfortunately for Bartel’s encour¬ 
agements, the aeroplane was coming back. It dropped 
its whole load of bombs in and around that camp, 
breaching the walls and destroying the huts and caus¬ 
ing not a few casualties into the bargain. There was 
an exodus of some size from that camp under cover of 
the night, and Bartels the next morning thought it pru¬ 
dent to move. 

He moved westwards into the country of the 
Braue’s, and there his second misfortune befell him. 
His month’s instalment of money did not come to 
hand. It should have travelled upon mules from 
Tetuan, and a rumour spread that the English had got 
hold of it. Nothing, of course, could be said; Bartels 
had just to put up with the loss and see a still further 
diminution of his army. Within a month the new 
camp was raided by aeroplanes, and Bartels had to 
move again. From a harrier of others he had sadly 
fallen to being harried himself. 

“There is a traitor in the camp,” he said, and he con¬ 
sulted Abd-el-Malek and stray German visitors from 
Tetuan and Melilla. They suspected everybody who 


280 


The Winding Stair 

went away before the raids and came back afterwards. 
They never suspected men like Ahmed Ben Larti, who 
was always present in the camp on these occasions of 
danger, not overconspicuously present, but just notice¬ 
ably present, running for shelter, for instance, or dis¬ 
charging his rifle at the aeroplane in a panic of terror. 
Bartels, however, carried on with constantly diminish¬ 
ing forces until the crops were ripening in the follow¬ 
ing year. Then the aeroplanes dealt with him finally. 

Wherever he pitched his camp, there very quickly 
they found him out and burnt the crops for a mile 
around. The villages would no longer supply him with 
food; his army melted to a useless handful of men; 
he became negligible, a bandit on the move. Ahmed 
Ben Larti called off the little train of runners which 
had passed in his messages to French agents in Tetuan, 
and one dark evening slipped away himself. His work 
was done, and almost immediately his luck gave out. 

A telegram reached Gerard de Montignac at Rabat 
a week later from the French consul in Tetuan, which, 
being decoded, read: “Larti brought in here this morn¬ 
ing. He was attacked two miles from here and left 
for dead. Recovery doubtful.” 

The last of Ahmed’s messengers had been lured into 
a house in Tetuan, and upon him Larti’s final message 
announcing the date of his own arrival had been dis¬ 
covered. Further telegrams came to Rabat from Tet¬ 
uan. Larti had lost his left arm just below the shoul¬ 
der, and his condition was precarious. He began to 
mend, however, in a week, but three months passed 
before a French steamer brought to Casablanca a hag¬ 
gard thin man in mufti with a sleeve pinned to his 
breast, who had once been Captain Paul Ravenel of the 
Tirailleurs. 


The Necessary Man 281 

Gerard de Montignac met him on the quay and 
walked up with him to the cantonment at Ain-Bourjda. 

“We have got quarters for you here,” said Gerard. 
“There's nobody you know any longer here.” 

“Yes!” said Paul. 

“We can rig you out with a uniform. The General 
will want to see you.” 

“Yes?” said Paul. 

“You know that you have been on secret service the 
whole time. The troubles at Fez were the opportunity 
needed to make your disappearance natural.” 

Paul sat down on the camp bed. 

“That was arranged in Paris before you went to 
Bartels,” said Gerard. “Oh, by the way, I have some¬ 
thing of yours.” 

He opened a drawer of the one table in the tiny 
matchboard room and, unfolding a cloth, handed to 
Paul the row of medals which he had taken from Paul’s 
tunic when he had searched the house of Si Ahmed 
Driss in Fez. 

Paul sat gazing at the medals for a long while with 
his head bowed. 

“I have got another to add to these, you know—the 
medaille militaire,” he said, with a laugh, and his voice 
broke. “I shall turn woman if I hold them any 
longer,” he cried, and, rising, he put them back in the 
drawer. Gerard de Montignac turned to a window 
which looked out across the plain of the Chaiouia. He 
pointed towards the northwest and said: 

“Years ago, Paul, you saved me from mutilation 
and death over there. I forgot that in Mulai Idris, and 
you didn’t remind me.” 

“I, too, had forgotten it,” said Paul. He looked 
about the cabin, he drew a long breath as though he 


282 


The Winding Stair 

could hardly believe the fact that he was there. Then 
he said abruptly: 

“I must send a telegram to Marseilles!” 

Gerard de Montignac stared at him. 

“Marseilles?” 

“Yes, Marguerite has been living there all this time.” 

“But you were in hospital there, and no one visited 
you, I know. The nurse told me.” 

Paul Ravenel smiled. 

“Marguerite never knew I was there. I was always 
afraid that she would come there by chance. Fortu¬ 
nately, she was driving a car. I was just Ahmed Ben 
Larti. The time had not come.” He looked at Gerard 
and nodded his head. “But I can tell you it was diffi¬ 
cult not to send for her. There she was, just a few 
streets and just a few house-walls between us. There 
were sleepless nights, with the light shining down on 
all those beds of wounded men when I could have 
screamed for Marguerite aloud.” 

He sent off his telegram from the Cantonment Post 
Office and then strolled into the town with Gerard de 
Montignac. The Villa Iris was closed; Madame Dela- 
grange had vanished. Petras Tetarnis was no doubt 
driving his Delaunay-Belleville through the streets of 
Paris. Paul looked at his watch and put it back into 
his pocket with impatience. It was out in the palm of 
his hand again. He was counting the minutes until a 
telegram could be delivered in Marseilles. He was 
wondering whether she was already aware—as she had 
been aware when he had stood behind her on the first 
night that they met. 

A' fortnight later Mr. Ferguson, the lawyer, received 
a telegram which put him into a fluster. He was an 


283 


The Necessary Man 

old gentleman nowadays and liable to excitement. He 
sent for his head clerk, not that pertinacious servant, 
Mr. Gregory—he had long since gone into retirement 
—but another, from whom Mr. Ferguson was not in¬ 
clined to stand any nonsense. 

“I shall want to-morrow all the necessary forms for 
securing English nationality,” he said, “and please get 
me Colonel Vanderfelt on the trunk line.” 

The clerk went out of the office. The old man sat 
in a muse, looking out of the window upon the plane 
trees in the Square. So here was Virginia Ravenel’s 
son coming home, invalided, with a wife. How the 
years did fly, to be sure! Yet though the plane trees 
were a little dim to his eyes, he heard a voice, fresh as 
the morning, through that dusty room, and saw the 
Opera House at Covent Garden with people wearing 
the strange dress of thirty years ago. 


1 


THE END 





















































































